Quake
by jelenamichel
Summary: Tony sometimes thought of the progress in his relationship with Ziva in tectonic terms. They moved together with agonizing slowness, until a burst of seismic activity either smashed them together or ripped them apart. They're due for another quake. T/Z.
1. By accident

**A/N: Because I have a bit of a reputation for NC-17, I feel that I should point out up front that although this story is all about the kissing, it is **_**not **_**a smut-fest. (Actually, I lie. One bit will be a teeny bit dirty. But it'll be clearly signposted.)  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p>Tony sometimes thought of the progress in his relationship with Ziva in tectonic terms. The plates they were each on seemed to move towards each other with agonizing slowness, save for unexpected bursts of seismic activity each year that either smashed them together or ripped them apart. Every year Tony thought he'd be able to predict the moment their plates were due to slam together and he tried to pack a survival kit to help him through it. Every year he ended up being taken by surprise and then struggled to deal with the aftermath. A wise man would have learned by now to stop trying to predict things and remain prepared for disaster year-round. But Tony was not a wise man, at least not when it came to his relationship with Ziva.<p>

His inability to accept that he had as much control over the relationship as he did over volcanoes and hurricanes meant that Tony had managed to convince himself that they were due for a seismic event. It had been months since the last significant tremor between them (an argument about his maturity that was really a front for an argument about her dating a 25-year-old barista), and he was sure that there would soon be an explosive release of pent-up energy that would alter the landscape between them. Given his luck, Tony assumed they were heading towards something catastrophic, devastating and gutting. But predicting their relationship was not an exact science. Although he ended up being right about the earthquake, his Theory of Mass Destruction was proven spectacularly wrong by a series of kisses that left him quaking in the best way possible.

Hey, he'd been a phys ed major. What the hell did he know about science anyway?

**By accident**

The first kiss wasn't their actual first kiss, but it was the one that gave their relationship the kick it needed to move beyond unresolved sexual tension. It happened by accident, of course. When given even a moment of time to actually think about whether their drift towards each other was a good or bad thing, Tony and Ziva always erred on the side of Deny All To Survive. So their first kiss ended up being a sneak attack on both of them that neither even registered as having happened at all until it was well and truly over.

It was the Friday before a long weekend that Team Gibbs had rostered off. McGee had left the office at 1500 to get on a plane to Vermont for a writers' festival, and Gibbs had been cranky enough about the early mark to make Tony and Ziva both stay back an hour to make up for the two McGee missed. Tony had tried to make an escape at 1700, but a steely gaze from the boss had him relinquishing his grip on his backpack and dropping his butt onto his chair again before firing off a terse text message to the probie. He'd cast a look in Ziva's direction, silently requesting her thoughts on an estimated departure time, but his partner in suffering had shaken her head back at him. There was no predicting Gibbs when he was cranky, and attempting to do so would only lead to frustration and then madness.

It was 1800 and Tony was deep in an email to McGee's private account that spoke of breaking into his apartment and stealing the heads from all his action figures before Gibbs suddenly stood, clipped his gun to his belt and strode towards the elevator.

"What're you two still doing here?" he drawled as he passed between their desks. "It's a long weekend. You don't have a better place to be?"

In his joy at being effectively dismissed for three days, Tony ignored the smug smirk on their boss' face. As Gibbs got in the elevator and left Tony's life for the next 85 hours, Tony sent his email off to McGee and once again started collecting his trash to take home. He pulled his gun out of his top drawer and stood to shove it into his shoulder holster and then grabbed his suit jacked from the back of his chair.

"I thought he was going to keep us here all night," he said to Ziva.

His partner slung her backpack over her shoulder and winced slightly as she freed a chunk of her hair from under the strap. "Not even Gibbs wants to stay here on the night before a long weekend."

"Why not? It's not like he's going to spend the weekend doing anything different to what he normally does." He shouldered his backpack and walked around his desk to meet her. "Basement, bourbon and boat."

Ziva narrowed her eyes briefly, displaying her _'how can a trained investigator be so dense?' _ expression. "Tony, he is going down to Mexico to see Mike Franks," she told him.

Tony frowned as he hit the button for the elevator. "He is?"

"Yes."

"Since when?"

She shrugged. "He mentioned something on Tuesday."

Tony tried to remember back that far. He couldn't. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why's he going to see Franks?" he asked. "What's going on?"

"Nothing."

Tony shook his head as his thoughts ran wild. "No, it's gotta be something. Gibbs only goes to see Franks when he feels like retiring or when something hinky's going on."

She eyed him levelly as the doors opened. "You sound like Abby."

Tony ignored the comment. "Trust me. When Tuesday morning rolls around, we're either going to find ourselves involved in some cold case with shadowy witnesses, or I'm going to be sitting in Gibbs' chair." He hit the button for the ground floor, and then crossed his arms as he leant back against the wall. He didn't like the stink of this. Thoughts of Gibbs in Mexico always gave Tony the sweats, and he devoted a moment's thought to where his passport was the last time he saw it.

"Why do you assume the chair will be yours?" Ziva asked, but he read the tease in her eyes and in her tone. "McGee is a very capable agent—"

"Who skipped out early and made us pay for his crime," Tony cut in. "Want to help me break into his apartment and move all his crap around?"

Her brows drew together. "Why?"

"To mess with his head."

Ziva's frown disappeared to be replaced with something akin to pride in him. "That is very devious, Tony."

"I know," he replied with a wink. "I thought you'd like it."

The elevator stopped on the ground floor and they headed across the foyer and out the main doors. The tree-lined path to their right took them towards the parking lot where Tony could see Gibbs' truck making a left turn out towards the base exit. He checked his gut for any rumblings that could be interpreted as bad news or foreshadowing, but all he found was a hankerin' for pizza and beer. Maybe Ziva was right. Maybe nothing was going on.

"How many movies do you think you will get through this weekend?" Ziva asked him.

"Depends on how much of a hangover I have on Sunday," he replied.

Ziva put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Ah, yes. Ritualistic male bonding from eight 'till late on Saturday."

Tony smirked at her description of his plans to meet up with his buddies. "I don't know how ritualistic it'll be. The cow we'll roast then eat will probably already be dead and drained by the time we get our hands on it."

Ziva grimaced. "Dead and drained."

Tony stopped walking and grabbed her arm to turn her to face him. "I swear to God, Ziva," he began, pointing a stern finger at her. "If you become one of the Lentil Brigade I will kick your ass. And I will succeed in doing that because you will no longer possess the energy to stand up under your own steam, let alone punch me."

Ziva smiled up at him. "And you prefer it when I have enough energy to get rough?"

He leaned in towards her and played along. "It always puts a smile on your face afterwards."

She scrunched her nose at him and resumed walking. Tony followed her with a grin. They'd almost reached the bumper of her car when Tony's cell phone in his pocket beeped with a text message. He pulled it out and slowly and distractedly thumbed in his PIN as he brought up the Gibbs thing one more time.

"You know, if Gibbs doesn't turn up on Tuesday you have to buy me dinner at the I Told You So Bistro."

Ziva glanced up at him as she felt around in her bag for her keys. "That is the new restaurant, yes? In the Delusional District?"

Tony faked a laugh as he opened the text message from his buddy. "How long have you been holding on to that one?"

She liberated her keys. "About two seconds."

"Very bitchy," he assured her.

As Ziva unlocked her car and tossed her bag into the passenger seat, Tony read his text message.

_Starting early. Ribs & OSU v Wolverines Chris'. NOW_

Tony gasped as a happy little rush went through him. "Oh, that's great," he murmured as he sent a quick reply.

"Something to do with food?" Ziva guessed.

"Ribs."

"It sounds like a glorious weekend of meat," she commented. "Promise you will stop if you experience chest pains."

Tony weighed that up and then shook his head. "No, I don't think I can."

"Then promise me that Abby will be the one you call if you are sent to the emergency department."

He sent her a wounded look. "Why? You're not going out of town. You wouldn't even make the effort to rush to my bedside if I was dying?"

She looked him up and down thoughtfully. "If it were from a situation out of your control? Absolutely. For death by meat?" She shook her head. "I think Abby will be able to offer more of the type of sympathy you will be looking for."

Tony shrugged. "That's a good point. You'll come to my funeral though, right?"

Ziva smiled her Mona Lisa smile and stepped in close enough so that her chest brushed against his. "I will wear stockings with suspenders and a low-cut dress in your honor," she purred.

Tony's head dropped to the side and her sent her a look of utter affection. "You _do_ care about me."

She winked at him. "I will not let you down."

He grinned and then looked down at his phone as it beeped again. Another message from his buddy.

_Poker game starts in 20_

Tony let out another short gasp of joy. "Oh! I gotta go," he told Ziva quickly. And then, without the slightest bit of thought, he leant in and pressed a kiss to her soft pink lips as if it was something that they did every single day of the week. "See you Tuesday," he said, and then turned and walked towards his car.

He was 10 steps away before his brain caught up and he realized what he'd done: he'd just kissed Ziva goodbye, right on the mouth without warning. His body had seized control of his actions from his head for just a few seconds and used the time to abolish all pre-existing farewell customs and possibly mark himself for death.

He was so surprised with himself that he almost dropped his cell phone. He desperately wanted to turn around to see the look on her face and gauge how Ziva had taken it, but there was no way in hell his brain was going to allow that now that it was back in control of his body. Instead, it was crafting a plan wherein he _wouldn't_ look back, wouldn't acknowledge it, and would just hope that Ziva would never bring it up or acknowledge it either. This situation would be handled like every other 'almost' situation they'd ever found themselves in: silent denial. If they didn't talk about it then it never happened, and nothing had to change.

He heard the engine of her Mini turn over just as he got to his car, and by the time he'd opened his door she'd reversed out of her space and was heading out of the lot. He listened to the squeal of her tires to try to determine her mood, but the sound was the same as always; fast, urgent and reckless. It never changed, whether she was happy, angry or laughing her ass off at her partner's momentary surrender to the Gods of Tired of Pretending.

Tony sat in the driver's seat of his Mustang and took a moment to give himself a solid head slap before starting the engine. He honestly didn't know how she would handle the latest tremor to hit their relationship, or how the landscape would change. The only thing he could be sure of was that he'd never been happier to have a three-day break from work.


	2. To focus attention

**A/N: I have to say that I've been staggered by the response to this story. Huge thanks to everyone who has story alerted, favorited and taken the time to review. I hope you continue to enjoy this uncomplicated little tale.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>To focus attention<strong>

Their next two kisses more thought and planning behind them, although not much.

Two weeks after the Parking Lot Kiss That Had Not Been Acknowledged, Tony and Ziva found themselves on a stakeout in a surprisingly clean and up market apartment building. On his last stakeout, Tony spent eight silent, uncomfortable hours with Gibbs in a room the size of a small bathroom. After that day he swore that he would _never_ do it again. He'd run his mouth, he'd make deals, he'd fight and curse and dig in his heels—whatever it took to get him out of it. His avoidance tactics had lasted one year and two months, and with two probies (who weren't really probies) under his belt, Tony was sure that he'd be able to pull rank and keep avoiding them for a long time to come.

He wasn't at all surprised that Ziva was the one responsible for bringing his dream run to an end. And yet, Tony couldn't muster the energy to be irritated with her. Ziva had spent the day in a playful mood and on some days that felt like an all-too-rare occurrence. So, he'd forgiven her indiscretion in favor of encouraging her.

…

_Earlier that day_

Tony and Ziva walked shoulder-to-shoulder behind Gibbs as they entered the grounds of the retirement villa. It was a Sunday morning so the grounds were full of families visiting parents and grandparents, and few of them glanced in the direction of the three casually dressed agents. They were there to quietly gather information on a nurse who had cared part time for a Marine requiring physical therapy who'd recently been found dead of a drug overdose.

Team Gibbs didn't want Nurse Jacobs to know they suspected his involvement, fearing he would flee before they had grounds to bring him in for questioning. They wanted to discreetly find out what his current patients thought of him by unofficially questioning a few of them. But before they'd even had a chance to split up, a sunny woman approached them with a welcoming smile and way too much interest.

"Morning!" she sang, adding a wave for good measure. "Can I help y'all this morning?"

Tony and Gibbs barely had the chance to form half a plan between them before Ziva swung into action. She quickly threaded her fingers through Tony's, turned an equally sunny smile on the woman, and came out with a flawlessly broad American accent.

"Oh, hi! I sure hope so," Ziva said, and held out her hand. As the woman shook it, Ziva introduced 'herself'. "I'm Ellie."

"I'm Lucy, one of the admitting nurses here at Cantebury Pines," she said. Her eyes fell to flick over Ziva quickly, as if sizing her up, before she flashed another sunny smile. "Are you here to see a relative? I might be able to help you find them."

Ziva shook her head, and then looked up at Tony with an expression that conveyed great regret. Tony wasn't sure what she had planned but he knew well enough to follow her lead. He gave her a sympathetic look in response and Ziva squeezed his hand before looking back at Lucy.

"My husband and I have been talking to Dad about maybe moving in here," she said, injecting just the right amount of guilt into her voice to make her sound conflicted. "We just thought we'd come by and have a walk around. See what it's like." She paused to favor Gibbs with a fond smile. "Dad retired from the Navy a couple of years ago, and I think he misses his shipmates."

That would have been enough to amuse Tony for the rest of the day, but Ziva took it so much further. She placed her hand gently on Gibbs' forearm, and then raised her voice until she was almost shouting.

"Isn't that right, Dad? You miss your Navy buddies?"

Tony held his breath and prepared to drag Ziva out of the way of a headslap her grandchildren would feel as their boss sent her a steely look. Tony knew as well as Ziva that Gibbs was promising all manner of hell to be rained down on her as soon as they left the grounds, but for now he just went along with her ruse and nodded in reply.

Ziva patted Gibbs' arm and looked back to Lucy. "He doesn't talk much," she shrugged.

Lucy gave Gibbs a kind smile of the sort most people reserved for the very, very young or the very stupid. "We have a lot of residents here who have spent time in the armed forces. But I have to say, your father looks quite young to be moving into the facility."

Ziva leaned towards her just slightly, as if preparing to share a secret. "He's not as young as he looks," she said quietly. "He had a little…" She paused to pull back the skin of her face with her hand. "…a few months ago. Took about 15 years off him. Don't you think, babe?"

Tony could only trust himself to meet her eyes for a second, in case the laughter bubbling in his throat was set free. He quickly looked to a stormy faced Gibbs and gave him an appraising look. "Yeah, it's much better now that the swelling's gone down. It's actually some pretty good work."

If looks could kill Tony and Ziva would have been dead on their backs.

Ziva gave Lucy another conspiratorial smile. "I think he's after wife number five."

Tony almost choked, and he squeezed Ziva's hand in warning. _Too far_. While they may have gotten away with simply being shot and buried in Gibbs' backyard before, now they were probably going to be chopped up and fed to wild dogs. Ziva seemed to sense her mistake and leaned into the imagined safety of Tony's body under the intensity of Gibbs' stare.

"Anyway, would I be able to talk to you about the facility while Dad and Paul look around?" Ziva continued, moving on quickly and setting herself up as the distraction while Gibbs and Tony did some low-key questioning.

Lucy didn't seem to notice the silent conversation happening between the three people in front of her, and gave them another bright smile. "Oh, sure! Go ahead. Why don't you come up to the office with me and we can talk a little about your dad's needs and how we can help."

"Great," Ziva said, and then turned to Tony. "I'll just be a little while. Keep an eye on him?"

"Won't let him out of my sight," Tony promised.

She leant in to give him a very brief kiss that was over before Tony could enjoy it, and then turned back to Gibbs and put on her loud voice again. "Go with Paul, Dad. I'll be right back."

At Gibbs' nod, Ziva kissed his cheek and then quickly joined Lucy as they made their way towards the main building. Tony turned his back so that he could let go of the smile he'd been swallowing for the last five minutes, and then chanced a look at Gibbs' stone face.

"Not a word," Gibbs warned.

Tony covered his laugh by clearing his throat. "What? I was just going to say that she's really good at undercover, and that she should get to do that more often."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes until Tony started to wonder if he had the power to kill with his mind, and then cocked his head to the left. "Get to work, _Paul_. I want this case wrapped before I fire your butts."

…

Now, hours later, Tony was beginning to wish that Gibbs _had_ fired them. Surveillance work with Ziva in a good mood was infinitely better than being stuck in a tiny room with grumpy Gibbs, but at the end of the day he was still stuck in one spot and wasn't allowed to leave. It was hard work for a guy whose initials were A.D.D.

And the most annoying part was that they shouldn't have been there at all. It was pouring with rain and the general rule of stakeout thumb was that rain kept everyone—including bad guys—inside and out of trouble. It was highly unlikely that they would gather any evidence from watching Jacobs' house tonight and Gibbs knew it. And yet, here they were.

He knew he should have been pissed at Ziva for going too far and dragging him down with her. But her fake accent, fake bubbly mood, the brief kiss and the line about Gibbs' possible fifth wife had wiped that away. His partner had amused him to no end.

"So where'd that accent come from?" he asked, glancing over at her.

Ziva's head lolled tiredly to the side to rest against the back of the armchair she was in as she looked at him. "Oh my God, Tony. I'm, like, totally a trained spy," she told him, breaking into her Valley Girl accent again.

He shook his head. "That sounds so weird coming out of your mouth."

A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. "Good thing I put it on."

"Why's that?"

"I know Lucy."

Tony's head swung around to look at her. "How?"

"She lived near me when I lived in Silver Spring," Ziva said, stifling a yawn. "I always saw her at the coffee shop down the street from me."

"Did she recognize you?"

Ziva nodded. "But she couldn't place me. She asked me if I went to NYU."

"What did you tell her?"

Ziva gave him that coy smile that always gave him a charge. "That I was a Buckeye."

Tony's surprise only lasted a moment before he grinned widely. "Did you really?"

"A Buckeye would not joke about something so important, Tony," she lectured, enjoying the smile on his face and the fact that she'd put it there.

A knock on the door interrupted them before Tony could work out how much OSU knowledge she'd soaked up over the years. With her hand resting on her gun, Ziva shot a side eye at Tony.

"Did you order pizza when I was in the bathroom?"

Tony shook his head. "No, it'll be the singing telegram I sent out for."

Ziva sighed. "You and your showgirls."

They stood and approached the door, guns drawn. Ziva watched Tony closely as he carefully checked the peephole, and when his shoulders slumped she knew there was no danger. He holstered his gun and wrenched the door open.

"What're you doing, Probie? Ziva almost shot you."

McGee stepped past Tony into the room as water dripped off his shoulders onto the hardwood floor. He looked between his colleagues with a frown. "Why? Because I knocked on the door?"

"You should've called first, McGatecrasher. I would've cleaned the place up." He gestured around at the furnished but uncluttered apartment. "Well, I would've made Ziva—" He cut himself off as the predicted punch landed on his arm.

Ziva closed and locked the door, and then headed back to her chair. "I thought your shift did not start for another two hours," she said to McGee.

McGee gave them a grin that was part sheepish, part indulgent. "Actually, my shift is cancelled," he said. "Gibbs said that once you guys are done there's no point keeping watch. No one goes out in the rain."

He was met with five seconds of deafening silence while his colleagues weighed up whether to laugh or open fire.

"Really," Tony finally drawled, jaw pushed out and eyes narrowed.

McGee held up his hands. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"Then whom should I shoot?" Ziva asked menacingly.

McGee replied without thinking. "Well, technically you were the one who pissed Gibbs off, so—"

Ziva was on her feet again in a flash and McGee took an involuntary step backwards. Tony stepped between them and spread his arms to keep them separated.

"Ziva, he doesn't know what he's saying," Tony said calmly before turning his best WTF face on McGee. "Bad Probie! You know better than to provoke the wild beast."

"Especially when she is hungry," Ziva added with just enough snarl to make McGee back up another step.

"Sorry," McGee muttered.

Tony returned to his comfy chair by the window. He fell back into the cushions and then checked the viewfinder of the camera trained on their suspect's apartment window. "You should go get us dinner for your sins, McGee."

McGee dug into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. "I got a Nutterbutter you can share."

The look of disgust that Ziva shot the candy bar was more than enough to tell Tony that the Nutterbutter was all his. "I'll take it."

Ziva sighed and dragged her hand through her hair. "I need air. I am going in search of real food. And McGee," she paused and shot him a glare, "can stay here until I make my way back."

"Sure," McGee sighed, knowing an argument would go to waste.

Ziva grabbed her hooded raincoat and slid it on. "Tony, do you want me to pick up a sandwich for you while I am out?"

Tony heard his name, but not the question. He was busy trying to rip open an uncooperative candy bar wrapper with fingers that somehow seemed like they were all thumbs.

"Tony?" Ziva prompted, louder this time.

'What the _hell_?" he swore at the candy bar, before sticking the corner in his mouth and trying to rip it open with his teeth.

"Tony!"

The wrapper gave way and Tony spat foil out of his mouth. He ripped the foil further apart in his fingers, and with his chocolate finally liberated he was able to provide an automatic response to Ziva yelling at him.

"Yeah, sounds good," he said, taking a gamble that agreeing with her would be the right answer anyway.

He was about to stick the candy bar in his mouth when Ziva's fingers pressed against the side of his chin and forcibly turned his head towards her. Then, before he could even yelp in protest, she pressed her mouth against his for the second time that day. The kiss was longer than the one he'd given her in the parking lot. Long enough for him to register the warmth of her lips and how soft they felt, but not much else. When she pulled back again, she hovered just inches in front of him and then repeated her question with just a hint of amusement glinting in her eyes.

"Do you want me to pick up a sandwich for you?" she repeated deliberately.

Her kiss had the desired effect, with Tony now focusing on every single word she spoke. He nodded and tried hard to keep his eyes on hers instead of dropping them to her lips. "Yes, please. That would be very nice. Thank you."

"Okay," she said, and then gave his cheek the gentlest of smacks before straightening up and walking away.

Tony watched her until the apartment door closed behind her, and then his eyes fell on an extremely amused McGee.

"So, I guess you two are—" McGee started, but Tony cut him off quickly.

"No, we're not," he said sharply. "She was just playing dirty."

"Didn't _look_ that dirty," McGee cracked.

"Shut up, McNosy," Tony shot back. "Or else your mint condition 1977 Han Solo Barbie doll is going to find its way onto eBay."

McGee sighed and settled into Ziva's vacated seat. "You really need to give those back to me," he said, referring to all the action figures that had gone missing from his apartment over the long weekend.

Tony picked up the binoculars and looked out the window. "Not until you've learned your lesson," he said. He focused in on Ziva as she dashed across the street and used the cover of shop awnings to keep her dry as she headed up the hill to a convenience store. Had she been planning that kiss as payback? Or had it been a spur of the moment kind of thing that—

"What lesson?" McGee was asking him.

Tony tried to wrestle his thoughts back to their conversation but found it too difficult to focus. Ziva had rattled him good. "I can't remember," he admitted. "But it was important."

"It's theft," McGee pointed out.

Tony sighed and tried to think of a signature DiNozzo come-back. He couldn't. His head was completely empty save for thoughts of Ziva's lips and the knowledge that the next earthquake their relationship felt was going to be a big one.

Oh, and that stakeouts weren't _nearly_ as bad as he remembered them to be.


	3. To calm

**A/N: Seriously, your response to this just astounds me. Thank you!  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>To calm<strong>

It bore repeating that Tony was not a scientist. Nor was he a psychologist or a psychic. So he couldn't work out why Ziva started getting agitated, and he couldn't see how his chosen method of calming her down would play out. But he did it anyway, and that's how they got to their next handful of kisses.

They were sent to search a house for evidence to tie a businessman to the death of a lieutenant. Gibbs' gut had sent them off to "investigate" (or, to be specific, illegally break into their suspect's house) in the middle of a working day, and the excitement created by their risk-taking behavior was strong enough to quash any problem they had with the unethical action. They drove out to a large house in an upper-middle class neighborhood, and after watching the street for half an hour they'd decided that the coast was clear enough to engage in criminal activities without being noticed. It took Ziva less than ten seconds to pick the lock on the back door and get them inside, and they started working their way through the house in search of clues that would point them in a case-solving direction.

They were in the master bedroom when it started to go pear shaped. A noise from downstairs made the hair on the back of Tony's neck prickle, and his and Ziva's eyes locked as they listened to the creaking of the staircase as their gatecrasher came towards them. He could tell by the way Ziva cocked her head that she was trying to calculate the person's height, weight, gender and fighting style from nothing more than their footsteps, and Tony sent back a look that he hoped conveyed his strong disagreement with her 'fight our way out' plan. Ziva pursed her lips as she weighed it up, Tony glared harder, and then another creak of the floorboards sent them both diving for the cover of the walk-in closet.

Tony got a face full of tweed blazer and tripped on a shoe in the dark while Ziva closed the slatted door behind them. He braced himself against the back wall of the closet and found his footing just in time for Ziva to step on his toe and then try to kick what she thought was an empty shoe out of the way. He held on to his yelp and yanked his foot back.

"That was me!" he hissed.

"Sorry!" she hissed back. "It is filthy in here. These people have obviously not cleaned out their closet in years."

Tony didn't see the big deal with that. "Yeah? So? How often do you clean out your closet?"

"Twice a year," she replied, as if it was a habit taught to children along with brushing you teeth twice a day.

"What possible reason could there be for cleaning out your closet _twice a year?_" he had to know.

He saw her head swivel towards him in the semi-dark. "To get rid of clutter," she replied. "To get rid of clothes you have not worn. To remove dust and—"

"Okay, I get it."

She moved a little closer to him. "When was the last time you cleaned out yours?"

Tony didn't even have to think about that. "Well, I moved in back in '96, so…"

Ziva made a disgusted noise. "Your clothes are probably crawling with dead bugs."

"_Crawling_ with dead bugs," he drawled, highlighting the problem with the statement.

Her shoulder bumped against his chest, but he couldn't tell whether she was just shifting her weight or warning him not to make fun of her. She went on, "And the dust will be caked all over the clothes you have not attempted to squeeze into since then."

Tony sucked in his stomach. "I don't have to squeeze into anything," he shot back. "It all fits. I just don't wear my old stuff because my style's changed. I don't just to jeans and hoodies anymore."

She looked him up and down. "Shame," she began, but a noise outside the closet door silenced the rest of her comment.

They both unconsciously grabbed at each other's arm, and Ziva leaned further into Tony's chest as if it would provide her with further cover on top of the closed door. They both held their breaths when a shadow passed by the door, and in the dark of the closet with Ziva pressed against his chest, Tony was reminded of a similar situation from a few years ago when they had broken into a military base. When Ziva tilted her face up to his a moment later, he wondered if she was thinking of the same thing.

He would have loved to let his imagination wander off down a sexy kissing place as it had back then, but the shadow hovering in front of the closet door held the majority of his attention. The fact was that they were trespassing. If the police came they'd get charged with break and enter at a minimum, and that would cause all kinds of problems for them personally. Worse than that, their case would probably collapse, a murderer would go free, and if that wasn't enough Vance would probably have a rage aneurism. Man, he _really_ had to stop blindly following Gibbs' gut without thinking things through.

They may have been okay if the other person in the house was also a criminal, but Tony didn't like their chances of that. The way the person was creeping around instead of stomping with familiarity suggested it wasn't the homeowner either, so Tony's money was on a security company. Perhaps he and Ziva had tripped a silent alarm again. That seemed to happen to them a lot.

The shadow moved again, away from the closet in the direction of the bedroom door. Tony let out the breath he was holding as the immediate danger eased.

"Security guard," he all but breathed against Ziva's ear.

Ziva nodded. "I can take him," she whispered back.

Tony almost choked. "Take him _where?_"

Ziva either didn't get or deliberately ignored his warning, and sliced her hand across the front of her neck.

"_Or_ we could just wait until he leaves," Tony suggested.

Ziva rolled her eyes at him. "Fine." She paused. "He is taking a long time."

Tony dropped his hold on her elbow and slid his arm across her shoulders. "Consider it enforced team bonding time."

She tilted her face up to his. "Why is all the enforced team bonding I do with you conducted in a closet while hiding from a man with a gun?"

He shot her a crooked smile. "Story of our partnership, Sweetcheeks." In one way or another, they were _always_ hiding their 'bonding' from a man with a gun.

She cracked a smile of acknowledgement and then looked back towards the closet door. "Perhaps it is Gibbs out there, come to check on us."

Tony chuckled. "He would've found us by now. And pulled us out by our ears."

Ziva bumped her whole body against his. "Not your ear, Tony."

He winced at the connotation. "Ouch."

They heard floorboards creaking again from outside the room and fell silent to listen to the security guard.

"Yeah, it's Mick," he said, presumably talking into his cell phone. "I checked out the Sanderson place but there's no one here. False alarm. Musta been one of those huge rats again like last time."

Tony's hands tightened on Ziva in alarm and he tried to look down at his feet. Rats? _Huge_ rats? Tony was _not_ a rat fan.

"Stop it!" Ziva hissed in his ear.

"Rats?" he repeated.

Her tone got firmer. "_Stop it!_"

"I'm on my way back," the security guard was saying. "Let the homeowner know it's all clear. Hey, you want me to pick you up a burger? I'm gonna stop at that joint up on Williams."

His voice got softer as he passed the bedroom and started down the staircase. Tony and Ziva remained quiet and still until hey heard the slam of the front door, and then Ziva peeled Tony's fingers out of their vice grip on her shirt.

"The rats will not harm you, Tony," she assured him.

"Excuse me for being jumpy," he replied. "You would be too if you'd had the plague."

"That is another reason for you to clean out your closet," Ziva told him. "The dust is not good for your lungs."

"Okay, okay! I will clean out my closet," he promised.

Ziva nodded her approval and stepped away from him. But when she reached for the handle on the door Tony grabbed her other hand and pulled her back.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving," she said obviously.

"We have to wait," he told her.

"What?"

"We have to give it a few minutes," he stressed. "The guard would've reset the alarm when he left. As soon as we walk into the bedroom it'll go off again and he'll have to come back. He's still too close for us to get out of the house without being seen. We've got to give it five minutes."

Ziva stared at him as she digested that, and then sighed irritably. "How do you pass five minutes stuck in a tiny, dark, stuffy closet?"

He frowned at the hint of tension in her voice that hadn't been there before. "Are you okay?"

She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. I just don't like dark, confined spaces."

Tony opened his mouth to make the obligatory dirty joke, but she heard it before he'd even worked out how to word it and cut a warning look in his direction. He closed his mouth firmly.

As Ziva leant against the wall beside the door, Tony watched her closely. He couldn't remember her ever having an issue with claustrophobia before, and he didn't think that was _exactly_ what was going on here. But something had given her a bit of a shake. Wishful thinking told him that it was the idea of being stuck in a closet with him after their guerilla kissing attacks on each other lately, but common sense told him she was probably just hungry or had a headache or something utterly mundane like that and not at all sexy.

And yet…

She had been holding on to him while the security guard was outside the door. She had been pressing herself against him, and tilting her face up to his. They'd been in this situation before, and back then he was sure she'd stopped herself from acting on her impulses. Maybe it wouldn't be so farfetched to think that she would like the opportunity to see what would have happened if she'd acted on them. Not that Tony knew exactly where things would have gone either.

Ziva seemed to tire of her inspection of t-shirts and ties and looked over at him. He knew he'd been busted having non-professional thoughts when she gave him a wary frown.

"What?"

Tony went for innocence. "What?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

He dropped the innocence when he decided it would be more fun to tease. He let his eyes fall to look her up and down and shot her a smile, even as he played dumb.

"Like what? I'm not looking at you."

She shifted her weight and rested her back against the wall across from him. "You are looking at me—"

"Because you're there," he shot in.

"—with a _comment_ in your eyes."

"A comment," he repeated.

"Yes."

His eyes darted to the side, as if he was looking for the answer before asking the question. "What comment?"

Ziva's eyes dropped to look him up and down very quickly and deliberately before she cocked her shoulder at him and raised her eyebrows. Tony smirked at her effort.

"Was that supposed to be the comment?" he asked.

"Yes."

He shook his head. "No, that was definitely _not_ the comment," he told her. The look she'd given him was half-assed and dirty. He'd definitely had something else on his mind.

Ziva sighed and barely rolled her eyes before trying again. This time her eyes traveled his body slowly and with great interest, much like they had the first time they'd met in the bullpen. The hairs on his forearms rose and a smile stretched his lips.

"Oh," he drew out. "_That_ comment." He paused to look her up and down again. "Well, it needed to be said, Ziva."

She turned her face away from him, but he caught her smirk. She was enjoying this, and she couldn't hide it. It took her a full five seconds to regain her poker face, and when she turned to look back at him she caught him looking her up and down yet another time.

"You talk a lot, Tony," she told him.

"Yes, I do."

"But I cannot always understand what it is that you are saying."

He grinned at her playing with him. "Well, I was just wondering when you were going to offer me a sandwich."

Her eyebrows drew together as she tried to decipher his left field comment. "What?"

Tony tried not to take offence that she'd forgotten their surveillance kiss so quickly. He just kept looking at her with a smirk on his lips and a 'comment' in his eyes until it dawned on her, and she chuckled and looked away.

"Right," she murmured. "Of course."

He shrugged as if it were a no brainer. "We've got five minutes to kill."

She looked over at him again. "Is that all you need, Tony?" she shot back.

He dropped his head to the side and gave her joke a semi-withering look. "It'll take your mind off being stuck in a closet."

"Why would I need my mind taken off it?"

"Because you just said you didn't like being stuck in dark, confined spaces," he reminded her.

Ziva shook her head, denying it. "I am fine."

"Really?" he asked, and pushed himself off the wall. "You seem a little jumpy."

"I am perfectly still."

"Like you need to relax," he pushed.

She didn't move. "I am relaxed."

He looked her up and down one more time, and then raised an eyebrow.

Ziva scrunched her nose. "Be quiet, Tony."

Fine. She was going to keep running, but that didn't mean he had to keep chasing. He could end this now by launching a strategic attack. There was a chance she would retaliate by driving a wire coat hanger into his jugular or stabbing him in the eye with a stiletto, but damn it, Tony was feelin' lucky. He took another step towards her and Ziva's arms fell away from her chest, giving him a subconscious signal that she was dropping her barriers. His chest brushed hers as he hovered over her upturned face, and he met her gaze for a moment before committing to his plan. _Screw it_, he thought, and then dipped his head and kissed her.

He felt Ziva hesitate for a second before her lips softened under his and she leaned into him. He took it as a sign and deepened the kiss just a little as his hands came up to rest lightly on her hips, and he felt her fist curl around his shirt on his chest. But still, the kiss remained relatively chaste and they parted again after just a few seconds.

Neither of them moved any further away from each other as they continued to hold on to each other and take shallow breaths.

Ziva licked her lips before opening her eyes and looking up at him. "Why do you keep kissing me lately?" she asked softly, her bravado from moments ago gone.

"Me?" he asked. "You kissed me twice."

"That was the second time you kissed me," she pointed out.

Tony swallowed and shrugged as he tried to come up with an acceptable answer. "Habit."

She gave him a very slight frown. "What habit?"

He ran his hands to the curve of her waist. "I'm trying to form one," he admitted.

Ziva swallowed hard as her eyes drifted to his mouth. He thought she was going to question him more, but she surprised him when she just moved in and raised herself on her toes to kiss him again. The kiss was deeper and longer than the last, much more of a make out kiss than the brief expressions of affection they'd shared to this point. His hand cupped her cheek as her arms wrapped around him, and his brain released a flood of endorphins in reward for him finally, finally, _finally_ kissing this woman properly again. He'd only been waiting six freaking years.

They parted when oxygen became scarce and breathed heavily against each other.

"Three," he said against her mouth.

"What?"

"That's three times you've kissed me."

The delicious endorphin soup swimming within him suddenly drained as she dug her finger into his ribs. Tony yelped and jumped back.

"If you keep a tally you will not get the chance to make it a habit," she warned.

Tony rubbed his side. "Right."

She ran her hand through her hair and regained composure. "Can we get out of here yet?"

Tony nodded. Playtime was over. "Yes. Straight to the car, okay?"

Ziva put her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him. "I will drive."

"I don't think—" he started, but she cut him off.

"For a quick getaway," she elaborated, and then gave him a look that dared him to argue with her logic.

"Fine," he caved in. "You're not going to try to kill me as payback for kissing you, right?"

"Don't be silly," Ziva said, and then paused to rake her eyes over him. "The kiss was not that bad."

Tony gasped and clutched his chest in mock outrage, and she smirked before returning the to task at hand. She counted down before turning the knob and swinging the door open and they both dashed out of the closet. Tony closed the door again behind them, and then ran after Ziva as they bolted from the house. With each step he could feel the ground shaking a little more as the aftershock from their kiss started to hit. In the scheme of things that kiss had been extremely significant, and he wondered what their relationship would look like in the morning after the dust had settled.


	4. To celebrate

**A/N: Thanks for your continuing interest in this!  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed. <strong>

* * *

><p><strong>To celebrate<strong>

Six weeks of tremors and one significant seismic event had changed the landscape of Tony and Ziva's relationship subtly, but significantly. Some of the sharper crags and more rugged valleys had been smoothed out and the trails through once inhospitable land had become somewhat easier to navigate.

Tony couldn't work out why that was. With the exception of a handful of words in the closet, he and Ziva hadn't spoken about or otherwise acknowledged their unexpected fits of kissing. By all rights that should've made things between them more difficult to deal with. But the fact was that things now seemed more defined. Unexpected fits of kissing equaled shared intent to move towards something more closely resembling a relationship. And while he couldn't speak for Ziva (and attempting to do so would get him a kiss with a fist), Tony's feelings for her and continuing investment in whatever had been going on between them for the last six years was somehow beginning to feel more validated.

By the time Ziva's birthday rolled around, Tony was feeling confident enough of his footing to give Ziva a little more of a shake. And when he did, she came tumbling into his lap without the slightest resistance.

For reasons not understood by Tony (and not explained by his partner), Ziva's friends decided that birthday number 34 was the one to celebrate. Her friend Jody had emailed Team Gibbs two weeks before the event to make sure they were free, and when questioned Ziva had simply sighed, rolled her eyes and insisted she was only going along with it because Jody had been as adamant and unreasonable as Abby could be after ten Caf-Pows.

Tony had met Jody exactly twice in the four years Ziva had been friends with her, amounting to a grand total of about 15 minutes in her company. That wasn't much time, but it had been enough for him to wonder what the hell Ziva had in common with the hyper, hard partying, possibly medically insane woman. Three minutes into their first meeting, Tony had wanted a tranquilizer and a lie down. After ten he got a call from Gibbs directing him to a crime scene with a decapitated head, and he'd found it a welcome interruption. But for reasons he couldn't work out, Ziva genuinely liked her and looked forward to spending time with her.

He had only met one other friend of Ziva's. Her name was Olivia and had called Tony out on checking out her ass at a bar. She seemed the polar opposite of Jody, in that she was almost too relaxed about everything. She'd grown up the only girl in a family of five brothers, and it showed. If Tony remembered correctly, she was engaged to a chef of some sort and had a huge dog called Magnum. Tony liked her.

He didn't know much about the rest of her friends (a fact that he felt more than a little guilty about), but with the mix of personalities already on the board, Tony honestly didn't know what to expect from the party. In fact, he didn't even know if it was a _party_ or just dinner at Ziva's with a couple of friends. Ziva hadn't been willing to talk about it. The entire situation seemed to bug her, and Tony knew that if he wanted to keep getting away with kissing her randomly (and he did) then he shouldn't keep harassing her for information.

When he turned up at her apartment on the night of the party, the number of people he encountered both surprised him and planted an irrational feeling of jealousy in his chest. It wasn't a huge party, but there were about 40 people hanging around her small apartment, and that was roughly 30 more than Tony knew anything about. A disturbing percentage of that 30 were muscular, good looking guys in their late 20s and early 30s, and because Tony was a man with more than a passing interest in getting into his partner's pants, he couldn't help but wonder how many of these fine young specimens has rocked her socks.

The birthday girl herself was nowhere to be seen. When questioned, Abby, McGee and Palmer all denied having seen her at all, and Tony was beginning to think that she'd done a runner to avoid the party she hadn't seemed that keen on having. He sent her a quick text message that accused her of engineering a plot to gather all the people she wanted removed from her life in one place before burning the place down, and got one back almost immediately complimenting his butt in his jeans. Tony's eyebrows went up before he did another sweep of the room, but nowhere did he see a 5'7 Israeli ninja with eyes on his ass.

Instead of texting her back, he called her. "Where are you?" he asked suspiciously.

Ziva gave him her throaty laugh, which was enough to tell him that she'd probably had about two glasses of wine. "Are you not a trained investigator? And you cannot see me?"

Tony looked around again, but unless she was wearing a disguise he was positive she wasn't in the room. "You're not hiding in a closet by any chance, are you? Just tell me which one."

She laughed again. "No. And you are looking in the wrong direction."

He swiveled his head around the other way and looked out her living room window. Ziva stood on the sidewalk across the street in a black mini dress, holding her phone with one hand and a large bottle of something in her other. She smiled at him and he grinned back before moving over to the window and leaning against the frame.

"I doubt that you can even see my butt from there," he told her.

She shrugged. "I was making an assumption."

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She waved the bottle at him. "I forgot to get tequila."

"Oh. You want to do some body shots later?"

"If you would like me throw up on you," she purred, as if she was flirting with him.

He smirked. "Hot."

She looked both ways before crossing the street. "See you in a minute," she said, and hung up.

Tony grinned and slid his phone into his pocket, and when he turned around again the sight of Abby and Palmer standing right behind him made him jump.

"Geez! How long have you two been there?"

Abby looked like she was going to play coy, but Palmer didn't possess the ability and started rattling off facts. "Um, you didn't think she could see your butt, you want to do body shots with her—"

"You didn't hear the other side of the conversation," Tony cut in.

Palmer nodded agreeably. "Sure. It's kind of like Chinese Whispers." He stopped himself and covered his mouth. "Wait, is that racist? I didn't mean to be. But maybe it's like the term _Indian giver_," he said, lowering his voice. "Something that has its roots in offensive racial stereotypes, you know? I should ask Doctor Mallard."

Tony watched Palmer leave with a perplexed frown, and then looked at Abby to make sure she found the autopsy gremlin as weird as he did. But Abby was just staring at him with a knowing smile that made Tony squirm. She didn't say a word, just kept burning holes into his head with her stare, and Tony looked away before he showed his I Want to Make Out With the Birthday Girl hand. Salvation came in the form of Olivia who was standing just two feet away and happened to look at him at the same time he looked at her.

"Hi, Olivia," he said enthusiastically.

Olivia gave him an easy smile. "Hey, how's it going," she said, and then gestured at her blonde friend. "This is Donna. Have you guys met before?"

Tony shook his head and turned his body away from Abby to engage in what he thought would be a much safer conversation. "No, but Ziva's talked about you. You're the teacher who likes ballet, right?"

Donna nodded and shook his hand. "Yes. And you'd be Tony. The guy who made Ziva crawl through a dumpster for evidence you knew wouldn't be there."

Tony's smile fell a little as he remembered the event on her first official day at the agency. "Uh, yeah," he said at length as Abby snickered behind him. "But that was a long time ago."

"And when you're not doing that," Donna went on, "you're just generally taking up all of her time."

Tony shook his head. "No, that's Gibbs. Gibbs is responsible for that. I'm as much a victim as Ziva is."

Abby thumped his arm. "Tony!" she protested. "Never talk about Gibbs like that!"

Tony angled his body again to let Abby into the conversation. "And this is Abby," he introduced.

"Forensics and bowling," Olivia said, checking she was getting the person matched to the background history right.

Abby nodded. "That's me."

Tony recalled that Olivia was about to get married, and he seized on the factoid. "So, how long until the wedding?" he asked her.

Olivia gave him a fleeting look like she couldn't believe he had retained any information from their last meeting, but answered without drawing attention to it. "A little under three months," she said. "February third."

"And you and Ben are still planning on doing it in Memphis?" Oh yeah, he was scoring huge points for that one. Fiancé's name and wedding location? Triple word score.

Olivia's smile grew. "Yeah. Ben's a huge blues fan."

"Is your sister coming back from the UK for it?" Triple word score with 'X's.

"She's going to be my maid of honor," Olivia told him as Ziva joined the circle. "She'll come over a few weeks before and then stay for another week or so."

Tony nodded. "Oh, right. She's going to join you for a few days of your honeymoon in San Antonio, right?" Triple word score with 'X's, _and_ he used all his letters. _Bam!_

"Right," Olivia said, and then turned to greet Ziva. "Hey! Happy birthday," she said, and gave Ziva a quick hug.

"Tha—" Ziva started, but the rest was surprised away when Abby grabbed her in a long, tight, enthusiastic hug.

"Happy birthday!" Abby squealed, pulling her from side to side as she squeezed with all her might. Olivia and Donna stared at the display in alarm, clearly aware of Ziva's aversion to open displays of affection, and Tony felt relieved that it wasn't something she was just holding back from them. Not that Tony was much into open displays of affection either.

"Abby does that," he told them, playing it down.

Donna gave Ziva a quick kiss when she untangled herself from Abby, but Tony didn't try to touch her at all. Maybe if it had just been Olivia and Donna, he would have. But with Abby and her All Knowing Stare around, there was no chance.

"Happy birthday," he offered, and Ziva shot him a smile.

"Thank you," she said, and looked around at their hands. "Two of you do not have drinks."

"Haven't gotten to the kitchen yet," Tony said, and then looked at Donna. "What can I get you?"

"I'm easy."

Tony followed Ziva as they weaved between birthday well-wishers and scattered furniture towards the kitchen. Ziva waved her hand at the fridge and called out over the top of the music and conversation.

"Yours are in there."

Tony opened the fridge, and between the dips, cheeses and a cake box was a dozen of Tony's favorite long necks. He was pretty sure they were the ones he had bought a few weeks ago and left behind. He grabbed one and then sidestepped a 25-year-old lantern-jawed male runway model who was making eyes at his partner. Ziva smiled back politely at him and then caught Tony's pointed eyebrow. She averted her eyes and focused on pouring two glasses of wine.

"Too early for tequila?" he asked.

Ziva screwed up her nose. "I did not get it for me," she told him. "And do not act like it does not make you extremely ill."

He was going to ask who it was for, but another woman danced into the kitchen and gave Ziva a tight hug.

"How are you, Ziva? I haven't seen you in months."

"I am good," Ziva said, and gestured at Tony. "This is Tony DiNozzo. Tony, this is Marie."

Marie gave Tony a long, appraising look. "Ohh, okay," she said, as if she'd just worked out the answer to a question that had been plaguing her. "Hi there."

Tony shook her hand. "Hi."

"So, you're the guy who has the porn star doppelganger?"

Tony's eyebrows shot up before he looked at Ziva, intending to demand why she had shared _that_ information above all the other dirt she had about him. But Ziva was pointedly busying herself with wine glasses.

"I will take one back to Donna," she said, and then scurried away.

Tony looked back at Marie and, with his backup gone, he tried to explain things by himself.

* * *

><p>After four hours, eight beers and a dozen conversations with strangers that had begun with, "So, you're the guy who…" Tony needed a little time out. That was how he ended up lying in Ziva's bathtub, buzzing with booze and thinking about all the people he'd met tonight and had never heard of before. He felt definite guilt over that. He and Ziva were partners who spent 60+ hours a week together, but he didn't know anything about most of the people who she saw when she wasn't at work. Shouldn't he have known that stuff? Why did he assume that she lived in an NCIS bubble with barely any contact outside of him, Gibbs, McGee and Abby? He knew she was private. Just because she didn't say anything about these people didn't mean he should have assumed that a private life didn't exist.<p>

He was feeling a pang of jealousy about this other side of her life as well, although he wasn't sure why that was. He shouldn't have felt excluded when he didn't have any claim to what she did with her free time. A handful of kisses didn't make him anything more than what he'd always been to her. Especially not while she was surrounded by guys 10 years younger than Tony and with harder abs and uncomplicated links to her.

Tony tipped the remaining quarter of his beer back and swallowed it down. Maybe he shouldn't deal with those thoughts right now.

Someone walked into the bathroom to use the facilities, and even though Tony was behind the shower curtain with no view of them, he still squeezed his eyes shut. Fortunately he couldn't hear anything over the noise of the party, but he did hear the gasp that followed the flush of the toilet and the washing of hands (it had to be a woman, then), and he heard her call out when she left the bathroom.

"Ziva? I think a guy died in your tub!"

A moment later he heard Ziva's voice as she came closer. "It would not be the first time."

Tony didn't really want to think too hard about that. When Ziva pulled back the shower curtain he shot her a charming smile and waved.

"Not dead. Just resting."

Ziva looked down at him with a hint of amusement and then turned back to the door. "It's fine," she told the woman outside, and then closed and locked the door. She stepped out of her stilettos before she carefully climbed over the edge of the tub and found her footing between his legs. Then she sat down on the edge and rested her elbows on her knees.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

Tony shook his head and gave her a smile. "Nothing. I just found a nice place to lie down."

She shot him a sidelong look. "Usually, you are the life of the party."

He shrugged and balanced his empty beer bottle on the tiled ledge above his head. "And I will be again, very soon," he assured her. "I just needed a breather from all your friends coming up to grill me about things I may or may not have done to you in the past." He smiled so that she knew he wasn't actually that upset about it, and Ziva smirked.

"Sorry if you are not having a good time," she said.

"I am," he assured her, and then flicked his eyes lower for just a second. "I can see up your skirt right now."

Ziva's smirk didn't drop. "See anything good?"

He broke into a grin at her callback to a much more tense moment, but then closed his eyes and groaned. "You're trying to create an excuse to kill me."

He felt her pat his thigh affectionately. "No, I am rather fond of you at times," she told him. "And I am concerned about your back in there."

Tony shook his head. "No, I'm good. It's all good. Everything's good."

"Well, good."

"It's comfortable, actually."

"I doubt that very much."

He reached out to impulsively grab her hand and pull her towards him. "See for yourself."

Ziva made a surprised noise but didn't resist her tumble into the bathtub. She braced her free hand on the side of the tub to cushion her fall on top of him. "You are probably more comfortable to lie on that my empty bathtub," she pointed out.

Tony wrapped one arm around her waist as she attempted to find a comfortable position on top of him. "I believe that might be the nicest thing you have ever said to me."

"I just told you two seconds ago that I am quite fond of you at times," she pointed out.

He knew she was baiting him, and he played along. "At times," he echoed. "Wow. That's quite a big deal."

"I know," she returned, and finally settled with her head high on his shoulder. "Are you planning on spending the rest of the night in here?"

As much as he liked her weight on him and the tickle of her breath on his neck, Tony thought that spending the whole night in there might be rude. Particularly to the people who needed to use the bathroom. "No. Just until I can restore some energy."

Her hand came to rest over his heart. "A five-minute break does sound good."

Tony reached up to grip the edge of the shower curtain and swung it further down the rod, providing them with more cover. The bathroom door was still closed so the move was entirely symbolic, but Ziva got it.

"Thank you."

"No problem." He rubbed her back with a familiarity he probably shouldn't have had, but Ziva didn't warn him that he was about to lose a limb. "Are you having a good birthday? You didn't seem too keen on having this party."

Ziva's fingertip traced the outline of his shirt pocket. "No, but it has probably ended up being the best since I turned 21."

"What happened then?"

"I went to Greece with my boyfriend and spent four days eating, drinking and having sex."

Tony thought that over. "Yeah, that sounds pretty good."

"It is the benchmark," she told him.

He could certainly understand why, but he had the urge to become directly involved in Ziva's best ever birthday. "We'll have to think of a way to top that," he said, and then thought of some suggestions on the fly. "I can't get you a 20-year-old, but I can definitely get you a 40-year-old. And if my math is right, Ziva, that's twice as good."

Ziva burst into drunken giggles at his positive spin. Tony might have been offended by just how funny she found the idea if making her laugh like that wasn't so freaking rewarding. She _never_ laughed like that.

"I probably won't be able to get you to Greece for a while," he went on. "But I'd be happy to go out now and buy you a souvlaki, which would take care of the eating thing as well. And I can definitely keep you drunk for four days."

Ziva lifted her head to look down at him with a charmed smile. "Thank you."

"No problem."

Ziva's eyes dropped to his lips for a few seconds, and a mini earthquake went off within him at the look she gave him—it was the only explanation for the way his heart suddenly started tremoring and his head started buzzing. Actually, that could have been the beer. But he wondered how much 40-year-old she was in the mood for tonight.

"Happy birthday, Ziva," he told her again.

Her smile grew momentarily before softening again. "Thank you."

Was it Making Out With the Birthday Girl Time yet? If the look she was giving him was anything to go by, Tony thought that yes, it most certainly was. He put his hand on her cheek to draw her closer, and he caught the hint of a smile cross her face before he stretched his neck to kiss her.

Unlike the other two times he'd kissed her, this time Tony wasn't just closing his eyes and hoping for the best. This time he was positive that she wouldn't react with violence or horrified rejection. They'd been dancing around this and she'd purposely been teasing him and acting aloof, but that's exactly what it was. An act. A couple of kisses in now, and he knew she was enjoying this as much as him.

He directed her head to a better position for him, and she responded with a moan and a wriggle of her hips. He groaned back as her hand wandered and her mouth became more demanding, and he didn't know how much time passed while they made out like extremely horny teenagers, but he gathered it was significant. His head got light from the lack of oxygen, his neck got sore from the weird bathtub position, and his thigh was starting to go numb from Ziva's weight on it (not that he'd mention that—even when oxygen deprived, he still had _some_ wits about him). But he didn't want to stop and give it up. He was growing extremely fond of the motion of the ground vibrating under the force of their changing relationship, to say nothing of the motion of her body moving on top of him in the cramped space of the bathtub.

Then, things really began to shake. More specifically, Tony's cell phone in his front pocket started to vibrate, and Ziva cried out in surprise into his mouth. In the next second she'd broken the kiss to dissolve into more drunken giggles, and when Tony worked it out he had to join her. It turned out his vibrating phone was sandwiched between them close enough to body parts that often enjoyed such things.

"You want me to let that ring out?" Tony asked her, panting.

Ziva pressed her face into his shoulder as her body shuddered with laughter, and he couldn't stop himself from pressing a line of kisses down her neck and shoulder. He never thought the word 'adorable' would come to mind in relation to Ziva, but…

She was still laughing when she braced her hand on the edge of the tub to lift herself high enough off him to snake her other hand between them and into his pocket to tug the phone free and put it in his hand.

"Thanks," he said.

Ziva wiped tears from her cheek. "Thank _you_," she returned.

He shot her a wide grin and stole another impulsive kiss before answering his phone. "DiNozzo."

"Did you leave?" McGee asked him as Ziva lay down on top of him again.

"No. Why?"

"You've been AWOL for a half hour."

"Glad you're keeping tabs on me, Timmy," he replied. "But I'm just taking a break."

"Because if you left," McGee went on, "Ziva's probably going to make your life hell for the next week."

The Ziva who was currently lying on top of him with her hand creeping under his shirt? "Good thing I haven't left, then," Tony replied. "We haven't even had cake yet. I'm not leaving before we have cake."

"Okay, well, when you get back, can you come find me?" McGee asked. "I need a hand with something."

Tony frowned at the wall. "A hand with what?"

McGee hesitated. "Before I tell you, I'd like to remind you that I saw Ziva kiss you during that stakeout and I'm prepared to embellish that story when I tell Gibbs."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "What do you want?" he asked, his tone warning McGee to get to the favor and not push his luck.

"There's a girl here in a green dress," McGee started, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"You want a _wingman_, McRomeo?"

"Yes."

"It's a party," Tony pointed out. "She's not going anywhere. Just go talk to her."

Ziva lifted her head. "Who is she?"

"Some girl in a green dress," Tony told her.

"Who are you talking to?" McGee asked in alarm.

"Curly blonde hair?" Ziva asked.

"Ziva," he told McGee. "Does she have curly blonde hair?"

"Yeah."

Ziva heard the response and started shaking her head firmly. "No, that's Eloise. She is crazy. She's no good for Tim."

Before Tony could relay the message, McGee answered her and Tony moved the phone from his ear to hold it between them.

"What makes her crazy?"

"She met a man in a bar and went on three dates with him before he was posted to Europe for work," Ziva told him. "She followed him. Did not tell him. Just showed up at his apartment in Amsterdam and told him she was going to stay."

Tony's eyes widened. "Jesus. Run, probie! Run fast!"

"That's…good information to have," McGee said. "Why are you friends with her?"

"I'm not," Ziva replied. "She is Jody's friend."

"Oh," Tony and McGee both said, as if it made perfect sense.

"Find another target," Tony told him, and then hung up. "He's still young and has so much to learn about spotting crazy."

Ziva nodded. "Do you want a piece of my cake?"

He shot her an easy smile. "Are you coming on to me?"

Ziva pursed her lips to hold back her smile, and then leaned in to kiss him again. It wasn't as hungry as before, but it still made his heart stop and body buzz. When she pulled back it was only for a moment before pressing a few more firm kisses to his mouth. Then she looked down at him, shrugged and rolled her eyes as she played her enthusiasm down.

"Barely," she sniffed. "Do not flatter yourself." She gave him a quick wink to assure him she was joking and then made a move to get off him. But Tony wasn't quite done.

He put his hand on her cheek and went after her. "Wait," he said, and then gave her another soft, lingering kiss. "Happy birthday."

She gave him a slight smile, but her eyes were warm. "You said that before," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "I'm invested in this idea of giving you a birthday that beats the one in Greece."

Ziva chuckled and then looked down at his body. "Are you sure your back is all right?"

"Actually, it's kind of starting to hurt," he admitted.

"Okay." She made a brief attempt at getting up and then stalled. "I cannot think of how to do this in a dignified manner."

Tony grinned and gripped her hips, and then pushed her up as she braced herself on the side of the tub and eventually got to her feet without injuring either of them. She stepped out of the bathtub, and then turned back to hold her hand out to him. Tony grabbed it and pushed himself up to his feet. He felt his back crack and knee pop, and promised himself that the next time she lay on top of him he would have a bed or some other kind of soft furnishing underneath him.

"Well, this was nice, Ziva," he said, as if winding up their 'date'. "We should do it again some time."

Ziva stepped back into her heels and then smoothed her hands down the wrinkles in her dress. "Sure, I will call you," she threw back, and then tossed him a wink and a smile before she opened the door and left the room.


	5. To make a move

**A/N: FYI, this chapter uses characters that I've used in some of my other stories, but there's not supposed to be any link between this story and them.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>To make a move<strong>

Tony should have known it would end up with him feeling this way. He had an addictive personality, and in a moment of introspection in the days after her party, he wondered if perhaps that was part of the reason he'd kept his hands and lips off Ziva for so long. Because now that he'd started kissing her, now that he'd had a taste of her, now that the tremors had started, he saw no way of dealing with them other than getting _another_ kiss, _another_ taste, _more_ of her time, _more_ of her body. The aftershocks that continued to rumble through their partnership were turning him into a disaster junkie, and after years of avoiding the explosions because of the devastation he was sure they would cause, he now found himself doing everything he could to cause one.

It was like some sexy disaster movie, Tony thought, where the hero and heroine kept finding themselves in dangerous situations that created more opportunities for them to lose pieces of clothing and get dirty and sweaty (in the sexiest-looking ways). So long as no one got seriously hurt amongst the shaking and the rubble, he reasoned, then there was no reason to end it.

And besides, Tony wasn't quite sure it was a habit that couldn't be broken yet.

A week after Ziva's birthday party, Tony spent the afternoon playing basketball with his college friend Josh, a buddy from Baltimore PD, Chris, and a couple of other guys he had a semi-regular game with. Without question, Tony played his best game in years. And by the end of it he still had energy to burn. His sudden return to athleticism prompted a fairly predictable question from Josh after the game while the three of them were packing to go.

"What's going on with you, DiNozzo?" he asked, still breathing heavily and bent at the waist. "Did you get laid this morning?"

Tony shook his head but smiled broadly as he stretched out his arms. "Nope. Well, not in the way you mean."

"Really? Because that was some vintage, future NBA star play out there."

"You kicked my ass," Chris shot in.

"Fat Mike, the 300lb, 60-year-old blind dude who works in my accounting department could kick your ass," Josh told him.

Chris shrugged with half an agreement and looked back at Tony. "Did you get laid _last_ night?"

"No," Tony said. "Last night I was having a conversation over a dead body in a morgue."

Josh shook his head. "You've gotten way kinkier than you used to be," he cracked.

Chris cuffed him on the arm. "Hey, you ever do it down there?" he asked. "Me? I never got the urge when I visit the Refrigeration Palace in my precinct. But I know a guy who has, and he reckons it gives you a mad rush."

Tony crinkled his nose in disgust. "No, I haven't. But I also know a guy who has and he's probably the weirdest person I work with. And that's saying something."

Josh and Chris shared a look.

"How is Abby?" Josh asked.

Tony smiled. "She's good. Spending the weekend at some conference to do with…" He trailed off as he tried to remember. "Something," he finally settled on, and shrugged. "I think it had to do with blood. She explained it to me but she insisted on using big words. Usually she dumbs it down for me but I think she was cranky about something. Or possibly on a caffeine high."

Josh looked up at him in the middle of a lunge stretch. "Hey, you didn't say how Ziva's birthday party was."

A smile broke over Tony's face, but Chris jumped in before he could respond.

"Jesus, I know that smile. Did you get laid last weekend?"

"Must've been some mind-blowing sex if you're still playing like a Hall of Famer a week after the event," Josh threw in.

Tony sighed and stretched his thighs. "Sadly, no. I did not get laid last weekend. Or the weekend before that." His smile fell. "And that's as much as I'm willing to admit to."

Chris cocked his head to the side and sized him up. "Somethin' happened," he said. "You have a girlish glow."

"I do not have a girlish glow," Tony insisted, ignoring the McGee-like whine creeping into his voice.

This time Josh sized him up. "Yeah, DiNozzo. You kind of have a girlish glow."

"Shut up."

"What happened?"

Tony sighed and then spread his hands as he realized how ridiculous is sounded. He played the events down. "Nothing. We made out in her bathtub."

"We who?" Chris asked. "You and Ziva?"

"Yeah." That damn smile gave him away again.

"In her tub?" Josh repeated.

"Yeah."

Chris frowned, trying to follow. "You had a bath with her?"

Tony shook his head and sighed. "No, the tub was empty. I just felt like a lie down, and I kind of pulled her in with me." God, it sounded so ridiculous. And if the looks of Josh and Chris' faces were anything to go by, they thought so too.

"You felt like lying down during a party, so you went to her bathtub," Josh recapped slowly, making sure he was getting the facts right.

"Yes," Tony confirmed.

"How drunk were you?" Chris asked.

"Not very," Tony admitted. "Enough to think it was a good idea."

"Okay," Josh sighed, just accepting it. "And you made out with her while lying in the empty bathtub?"

"Yes." The smile returned.

Chris laughed at him. "So, today's just-been-laid athletic performance and girlish glow on your rapidly ageing face is because you kissed a girl _last week_?"

Josh joined in Chris' laughter. "Buddy, has it really been that long since you've been laid that kissing gets you this happy?"

Truth be told, Tony was pretty embarrassed that it was the case, and that he currently owned his 'ladies man' tag about as much as McGee ever did. But he decided to take the high road.

"I think you're underestimating just how phenomenal a deep kiss can be," he lectured.

Chris wasn't buying it. "Seriously? Does she have, like, boobs in her mouth or somethin'?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"I checked pretty thoroughly."

Josh smacked the back of his shoulder and attempted to be supportive. Sort of. "Well, I think your decision to embrace good ol' fashioned courting like they did back in the day should be commended. Kids today could learn a lot from you."

Tony smirked and took it all in good humor. "I've been saying that for 20 years."

"Yeah, I envy you," Josh went on. "I might follow your example if I didn't enjoy having sex with my wife whenever I want so much."

Tony and Chris shared a dubious look.

"You have sex with your wife whenever you want?" Tony challenged.

Some of the bravado left Josh's attitude. "If I've been good," he revised. "Or if it's the morning."

Tony wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he asked anyway. "Why the morning?"

Josh shrugged. "Well, because I can just roll over and…" He trailed off but made a hand gesture that finished his sentence for him.

Tony looked at him askance. "You wake her up first, right?"

Josh cocked his head like it wasn't really an issue. "Sometimes," he said. "Generally she wakes up."

"Generally?" Tony repeated, incredulous. He looked to Chris to back up his discomfort, but his also-married friend didn't seem bothered.

"Sometimes Celeste's happy to go along with it just so long as she doesn't have to do anything," Josh explained.

Tony's mouth fell open.

"We've been married 15 years and have two kids," Josh sighed tiredly. "One day, you will also have been married for 15 years with kids, and this conversation will make a lot of sense to you."

"I hope not," Tony said emphatically. "And if that's really how things are with you now, I think I might have the upper hand with just making out with hot, younger women in the bathtub."

Chris shook his head and slung his gym bag over his shoulder. "Enjoy it while it lasts," he warned. "Commit it to memory. And then draw upon that memory in the future when you walk in on her taking a dump with the door open."

Tony slammed his eyes shut and resisted the mental image with all his might. "You're ruining my girlish glow," he protested. "Just stop talking so I can draw on memories of her legs and of her lying on top of me and moaning."

Josh cocked his head. "You never got to that stage with Wendy?"

Ah, the ex-fiancé who Tony still avoided thinking about. "No, we didn't start sharing the majesty of our bowel movements."

"Of course you didn't," Chris said. "I don't buy that Wendy ever took a dump because she was so full of shit the whole time you knew her."

Tony smirked at Chris' assessment of his cheating ex as Josh laughed and slapped Chris' hand. Chris pointed at Tony.

"But you farted in front of her, right?"

Not surprisingly, Tony had to think about that. "No, I don't think I did. Not comfortably. Probably by accident."

Josh and Chris made the same judgmental face.

"See? Your ass always knew that relationship wasn't right," Josh said. "You should listen to your ass more."

"Really? Because Gibbs is always telling me to pull my head out of it."

"What the hell does that home-wrecker Gibbs know?" Chris sniffed.

Tony chuckled and clapped Chris on the shoulder. He'd been holding a grudge ever since Gibbs convinced Tony to apply to NCIS and leave Baltimore PD.

Josh slung his bag over his shoulder. "Your fart in front of Ziva, right?"

Tony nodded. He didn't have to think about that one. "Yeah. No problem."

"And she farts in front of you?"

"Sure."

"Does she apologize and get embarrassed?"

"No, that's not really a Ziva thing," Tony said. "She's been around a lot of men in her life."

Josh and Chris stared at him, looked at each other, and then looked back at Tony. Josh cocked his eyebrow.

"Dude?"

Tony caught on and explained himself. "No, I mean because she was in the Israeli military and Mossad. She had a lot of male colleagues." And after seeing all the hot young guys at her birthday party, Tony still didn't want to think too hard about the _other_ men in her life.

He picked up his gym bag and the three of them started walking to the car park.

"So, any ideas on when you might progress things beyond kissing?" Josh asked. "Or are you hoping to become a born-again virgin first?"

"I don't know," Tony said, and then hopefully added, "Soon."

"Keep us posted," Chris said.

"Sure."

They paused by Tony's car and Josh smacked his arm.

"You still coming by for dinner tonight?" he asked. "Or are you going to take Ziva for a drive up to Inspiration Point and try to get to third base?"

Tony smirked and accepted the ribbing. "Yeah, I'm coming by."

"All right. I'm gonna go home and fill Celeste in on all this, and then we'll flip a coin over who has to give you a talk about the birds and the bees."

"Can't wait."

* * *

><p>En route to Josh's place that night Tony decided to make a detour. He hadn't been even slightly offended by Josh and Chris making fun of him that afternoon, but the discussion had lit a fire of determination in him. As Josh had pointed out, Tony didn't have an ETA on when things between him and Ziva would progress. And suddenly, that bothered him. Maybe his pride <em>had<em> taken a little bruising that afternoon, but he was determined to force things forward at least a little bit so that Ziva wouldn't think he was only interested in a couple of kisses before his next date came along, and so that he knew she wasn't just indulging him because she had nothing better to do.

It was this thinking that had him standing outside her door 20 minutes before he was due at Josh's place. He didn't know whether she was home. He could have called her to make sure, but something in him wanted to catch her off guard.

It took her a while to answer his knock on the door, and when she did he wondered if it was because she'd been taking a late nap. Her eyelids were heavy and her cheeks were a little flushed, and she licked moisture onto her lips as she gave him a slow once-over. He couldn't blame sleepiness for the lingering look he gave her in return. That was due to the sight of her in yoga pants, a wide-necked top that had slipped off her shoulder and the way her hair was falling out of its loose, high bun and…God, she looked so good.

"Hi," she finally said, blinking some alertness back into her expression.

"Hey," he returned. "Sorry for stopping by unannounced."

One corner of her mouth barely pulled back. "You always stop by unannounced," she pointed out, and then stepped aside to give him room to come in.

Tony stayed where he was. "I can't stay. I'm running late for dinner with Josh."

"Okay," she said, and then leaned against the doorframe and looked at him expectantly.

"I just wanted to stop by for a few minutes."

She looked him up and down again, much like he had looked at her in the closet. "Okay," she said again.

A charge fired through him and he stepped closer. "Have you got a few minutes?"

"To stand in the hallway?" She shrugged. "Sure."

He shook his head, and although he wanted to talk a bit his addiction to her took control of him. "No, I just wanted to…" He trailed off, ridiculously shy about saying at aloud all of a sudden. So he didn't bother. He just leaned in and kissed her.

Ziva was quick to kiss him back, and the kiss heated up faster than any of the kisses that came before it. Tony pressed her into the wall as her fingers hooked into his belt and pulled him closer, and his hands cupped her head and drove into her hair as he tried to get a fix of her.

After a few intense minutes someone behind Tony cleared their throat. Tony and Ziva parted quickly at being sprung. Fortunately, it was just one of Ziva's neighbors returning home and not one of their colleagues come to visit. But they both sensed that kissing time was over. They looked at each other with small smiles.

"Habit," he shrugged.

Her smile grew momentarily. "It is really taking hold of you."

He didn't think she had any idea how accurate that was. "So, I just wanted to stop by and…do that."

Ziva looked at him coyly, but he wasn't convinced that she was really as cool as she was making out. "You just came by to kiss me?"

"Yeah," he admitted. He let his eyes drop to her lips for a few moments before he looked her in the eye again and shrugged honestly. "I like kissing you."

Her eyes softened, but she acted nonchalant. "Well. All right, then."

Tony rubbed his chin. He couldn't leave it at that. "So…I want more than this," he blurted out.

Her eyes widened with amusement and she smirked harder. Tony replayed his comment in his head and understood her reaction. She was thinking of sex when he was thinking about feelings.

"That's not what I meant," he told her. At the sharp rise of one of her eyebrows he doubled back. "No, I mean, it is what I mean. But I also mean…" How to put it into words without sounding corny?

His half-finished sentence got him another head-to-toe-to-head visual inspection. "This is the DiNozzo style that has served you so well over the years?" she questioned.

He sighed. "Everyone's giving me crap about that today," he muttered. "Look, Ziva, I just—"

Ziva cut him off by rising onto her toes and kissing him again. "If you have other plans tonight," she began, keeping her face close to his, "then do not finish that sentence."

It was a good point, and Tony wondered why he hadn't considered it before. Had he expected to drop by, casually mention that he wanted a relationship with her, and then head off to dinner without her?

He cleared his throat. "I'm going to finish that sentence tomorrow," he told her.

She nodded. "Okay."

"If you want to hear it," he checked.

Ziva pulled out her Mona Lisa smile. "Oh, I always want to hear your thoughts, Tony."

Tony stuck his tongue in his cheek. "You lie," he accused.

Her eyes flicked over his face and she wet her lips again, and Tony was sure she was going to kiss him again. When she didn't, he tried to make her explain herself.

"What was that comment, Ziva?"

Her smile grew. "You heard me," she said, and then pecked his lips again before stepping back into her apartment.

He grinned back at her. "I might swing by tomorrow."

Ziva pursed her lips, winked and nodded as she started to close the door. "Say hello to Josh for me."

He nodded and stepped back, but another thing he'd been meaning to say to her all week jumped into his head. "Oh, hey, I didn't get to thank you yet for telling all your friends that I have a porn star doppelganger."

For all her controlled and coy responses to his comments tonight, that was the one that made her laugh out loud. He smiled at the deep, throaty sound.

"How did you know about that?" he asked her.

Ziva swept her bare foot back and forth in front of her as she shrugged. "Abby told me."

He took a step back towards her and cocked his head. "Did Abby tell you or did Abby _show_ you?"

She let out another throaty laugh. "She showed me, Tony."

"Recently?"

She shook her head and scrunched her nose at him. "Oh, no. It was a long time ago."

Tony sighed and idly wondered what Spike Steel was up to these days. "I will have to thank her for that."

Ziva sent him a brief, teasing pout. "What is the big deal, Tony? It was not you. And even if it was…" she paused to look him up and down again, "…I have already seen it."

Tony literally bit his lip. He didn't know why that embarrassed him so much when he was so keen on her seeing _it_ very frequently and not to far from now. "Okay," he said, and started walking away again.

"Tony?"

He turned to see her leaning against the wall outside her apartment door. She was looking at him with a small smile that verged on proud, and for the life of him he couldn't work out what he'd done to put it there.

"Olivia told be that you asking about her wedding."

He grinned. He knew he'd done good on that. "Yeah."

"How did you remember all that?"

His eyes searched the wall for an answer. "I don't know. She's your friend. It seemed like it might've been important to you."

She watched him quietly for a moment as she thought that over, and then pushed off the wall to walk over and kiss him again. Without saying another word, she shot him a smile before turning and heading back to her apartment.

Tony broke into a full smile at the reward right as the door closed, and he turned around and headed for the elevator. Okay, so they were both clear that this wasn't just about a little bit of fun until the next thing came along. That was a huge relief to him, and it took some pressure off for when he swung by again tomorrow to talk to her.

Now all he had to do was work out what to say.


	6. In sympathy and agreement

**A/N: I haven't said it for a while, but thanks again to everyone who keeps following this, and particularly to those of you who keep reviewing each chapter. I'm really bad at replying, but I recognize all your names and appreciate that you keep coming back.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>In sympathy and agreement<strong>

Before Tony could come up with an Oscar-winning speech that would win over the girl, things went somewhat awry.

He woke up at 0600 on the day he was supposed to say something that would get the girl to the dulcet tones of his cell phone screeching and demanding attention. It was Gibbs on the line (of _course_ it was Gibbs who interrupted his plans to get to home base with his partner) telling him he had to come to work. Apparently there had been a break in a case they'd started working several months ago to do with a petty officer who'd washed up on Virginia Beach with a bullet hole in his head. Team Gibbs' Sunday off was cancelled.

Tony spent the first two hours of that morning sitting at his desk across from Ziva. Everything was strictly professional and neither gave any indication that things between them might have been changing. Gibbs didn't squint at them or sigh knowingly or slap or swear or fire anyone. Tony hoped they'd stay off his radar for a little while longer. At least until he'd worked out what to say, had said it, had been handsomely rewarded for saying it, and had managed to move him and Ziva far away from the destruction that Gibbs' mighty volcano of anger would create. (The Maldives had always looked good.)

It was late morning when Gibbs sent Tony and McGee out to the docks at Virginia to question the brother of their dead petty officer, and lunchtime by the time Tony got his ass kicked. But for the record, so did McGee.

The questioning of the brother was supposed to be routine; they didn't suspect him of being involved, but wanted his help in developing a timeline of his brother's last days to see if they fit with information that had just come to hand. But the brother, a dock worker who was at least twice Tony's size and all muscle, and who they would later discover had a meth addiction, had taken one look at their suits and badges and came out of the blocks fighting.

The first punch broke McGee's nose and sent blood spraying all over the concrete floor. The second missed Tony's head by a hair's breadth, and the third landed a blow that felt like it pushed Tony's stomach into his back. One bullet from McGee's gun found its way into the mountain man's shoulder, but it barely slowed him down. With blood pouring down his arm, he grabbed Tony around the waist and rammed him backwards into a wall, cracking the back of Tony's head against the concrete and blurring his vision. What followed was a knock down, drag out fight that left Tony and McGee bloodied, bruised and a little bit broken before Tony could grab his gun from the corner it had been kicked into and fire a shot that shattered the man's knee and brought him down.

The ambulances arrived before Gibbs and Ziva, and the paramedics were able to give the mountain man a sedative that kept him still when they strapped him down. Still bleeding and in a fair amount of pain, Tony and McGee were questioning the other dock workers about their coworker when Gibbs and Ziva came striding into the warehouse like badass leather-clad superheroes with machine guns. After a brief exchange of information, several terse words and one or two sympathetic glances, Tony and McGee tagged out and were sent to the hospital to get checked out.

A three-car pileup on the highway involving kids and the elderly meant that when they arrived in the ER the agents had to wait. They passed an hour without painkillers by telling each other the grossest stories about previous injuries they could think of. McGee won first and second prize with a story about the time he fell into a fence as a kid and ended up with six inches of lower intestine hanging out of the wound, and another about when he broke his tibia so bad that the bone poked through his skin. Tony was still asking about what his intestines looked like when nurses came to wheel McGee off to be x-rayed, stitched, and have his nose reset. He passed another 20 minutes on his own gritting his teeth against the pain that throbbed through his entire body and trying to guess the ailments that had brought the other patients to the ER before he was wheeled off for a CT scan and asked a hundred questions to make sure he didn't have a brain injury.

An hour later he was waiting for a doctor to turn up to stitch a gash on his right arm that he didn't remember getting when Ziva slipped into the room. He started to smile and sat up straighter, but a sudden rush of blood to his already throbbing head made him moan in pain and slam his eyes shut.

"Tony?" Ziva said, concern lacing her voice as she touched his shoulder.

His shoulder was tender from when he'd been driven into the wall, and later into the ground. He gasped and flinched away from her, and the movement made every single joint in his body burn with pain. "_Ow!_"

"Sorry!" she said, sounding like she was wincing. "Are you all right?"

Tony shook his head a second before realizing he should _not_ be shaking his head. "Yeah," he grimaced, his pride making him play his injuries down. "Mild concussion."

"What's wrong with your shoulder?"

"Nothing. It's just sore."

She touched his knee. "Well, did the doctor—"

"Ow!" he cried again, and moved his leg away from her. More pain exploded through him, and he couldn't decide whether to blame age, deteriorating fitness, or a beating that was worse than he first thought.

"Is your knee sore?"

"Yes," he replied, barely managing not to whimper. "It's sore. Everything's sore!"

He heard her sigh and cross to the other side of him. "Are you going to open your eyes?"

Tony thought about it. "If we can both just be still and quiet for a moment, then yes. I will open my eyes and be 75 per cent confident that I will not throw up."

"Are they sure it is just a mild concussion?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. "And you're not being quiet."

She heaved another sigh but didn't say another word. Tony took deep (but not too deep) breaths as the pain in his body slowly ebbed away, and then counted to 20 before cracking his eyes open. Ziva was standing close by and looking at him with a mixture of sympathy, worry and annoyance. He didn't know why he deserved the last one.

"Hi," she said.

He attempted another smile, and this time the pounding in his head didn't get any worse. "Hi." He looked down very quickly and attempted a joke to assure her he was feeling better than he was. "What's that you're wearing?"

Ziva frowned and looked down at herself. "A sweater?"

"Huh," he grunted. "I must be hallucinating the black lace."

Ziva smirked. "No, but it appears you have acquired x-ray vision."

He stared at her for a moment before his vision swam again and he slammed his eyes shut. She grabbed his arm as he winced.

"Tony?"

"Ow, ow, _ow!_" he cried, and pulled his tender arm away. More pain lanced through him, and God, he didn't like taking painkillers but maybe he'd have to make an exception.

"Sorry!"

"It's fine," he pushed out, and tentatively pressed the heel of his palm against his eye. "I just got really light headed all of a sudden."

"Oh, good Lord," she muttered.

He held up his index finger. "I was not trying to make a dirty comment!"

She sighed again. "Is McGee all right?"

"I don't know," he replied, and carefully opened his eyes again. "I haven't seen him since they took him away to be x-rayed."

"Our suspect has just come out of surgery," she told him. "Gibbs is organizing to have agents posted outside his door."

"I have a theory," he told her. "My theory is that he might've killed his brother."

His theory did not seem to come as a surprise to her. "Yes, I think that might be the case."

"I'm a very talented investigator," he told her.

Ziva 'hmm'ed and looked down at his bloodied arm. "What happened here?"

"I don't remember."

That got him another worried look. "_Mild_ concussion? Really?"

Tony sighed. "You've had concussions, Ziva," he pointed out. "After the last one you had, you didn't even remember arriving on scene, or even seeing the guy who clocked you."

She straightened her spine. "I am positive I did not see him. He came at me from behind."

"No," he argued. "I saw you kick him in the face before he swung around and cracked you with a jug."

She waved her hand through the air, dismissing it. "You are going to have a black eye tomorrow."

"Probably two."

Her expression turned sympathetic and she lifted a hand to his face. "What are all the cuts from?"

Her fingertips made the cuts burn, and he winced and pulled away from her. Once again, pain washed through his whole body and he began to consider asking the doctor to admit him overnight. That way he'd get the really good drugs, and it would have the added bonus that he would be away from Ziva while he went through the loopy phase. Being drugged up around her right now when there were things he still has to say was a very, very, very bad idea.

"Stop touching me!" he almost yelled.

Ziva pulled her hand back and crossed her arms as she huffed, and he wasn't a hundred per cent sure, but her bottom lip looked like it might have quivered.

"Sorry," she said softly, and then cleared her throat. "You are waiting for someone to stitch that?"

"Yeah. He said he'd be back in five minutes, but that was 20 minutes ago."

Ziva nodded. "I will go find someone to help," she said, and then stepped over to the door.

On top of dealing with the pain, Tony now felt like a dick for yelling when she was trying to be sympathetic. "Ziva?" he called out.

She turned to look back at him, her expression completely neutral and controlled.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "There was a big car accident before and they brought in a bunch of people. Kids. They've got other priorities right now."

Ziva hovered at the door and looked down the hall before looking back at him. "If they don't stitch that soon it will scar."

He flashed her a smile. "Chicks dig scars, Ziva."

She crossed her arms again and stared at him, and Tony attempted to put his comment through his male-to-female translator. It seemed ridiculous to him that she might think he was saying what the translator suggested, but he took a punt on it.

"Not that I care what chicks in general think," he said slowly. "How do you feel about scars? Because that's what I'm interested in."

"Stop it," she said with an eye roll, but it got her to take two steps back into the room. "So, aside from your arm and your mild concussion and your shoulder and your knee and your face, are you all right?"

Tony sighed and cracked just a little. "I feel pretty crappy."

Her sympathetic face was back as she crossed over to him. "Maybe you should lie down while—"

Tony cut her off with another "Ow!" and another wince when her hand touched his neck, and Ziva threw up her hands before resting them on her hips.

"Well goddamn it, Indy! Where _doesn't_ it hurt?"

The timing and delivery of the movie quote was perfect, and Tony thought it was lucky he'd refused the painkillers after all. Because if he'd taken them, he was sure he would have told her right then that he loved her. He sucked his lips into his mouth as he found control of himself and Ziva looked down at him expectantly. He slid into a smile and played along.

"Here," he said, tapping his lips with his finger.

Ziva smirked and then held her hands out at shoulder height to assure him she wouldn't touch him anywhere else before leaning in and kissing him gently. It wasn't anything like any of their previous kisses, but it was warm and soft and made his body throb all over again.

Just like last night their kiss was interrupted by a third party clearing their throat behind them. Ziva jumped back and raised a guilty hand to her mouth, but it was just the doctor returning to suture Tony's arm. They shared a quick look and Tony read her Gibbs-related thoughts.

"We've got to start clearing the area before we do that," he commented.

Ziva lifted her eyebrows in acknowledgement and then crossed her arms and leaned against the wall as the doctor pulled the lamp over to Tony's arm.

"Habit," Tony said.

The doctor looked up. "What's that?"

Tony shook his head and gestured at Ziva with his chin. "I'm talking to her. She has a habit of kissing me."

"Well, there are worse habits to have," the doctor said knowingly. "Now, you're gonna feel a series of little pricks."

After his stitches were done Tony was sent home with instructions to come back the following day for another check of his head. Their suspect was still in recovery and wouldn't be ready to be questioned until the following day, and so Gibbs and Abby had taken McGee home to keep an eye on him while he indulged in painkiller heaven. Tony had also picked up some of those painkillers but so far had steadfastly refused to take them. He was at a crucial point in his relationship with Ziva, and throwing drugs into the mix could potentially be the dumbest mistake he ever made.

* * *

><p>When he got home he headed straight for the shower as Ziva poked through his fridge in the hopes of finding something to eat. The hot water streaming over his body made every scrape and cut sting, but Tony put up with it while he washed off all the blood and tried to let the water help soothe his sore muscles.<p>

There was no doubt about it. He definitely wasn't as young as he used to be and he had to accept that he was starting to feel it. That's why he couldn't take a punch like he used to, or spring off the ground with ease. Granted, the punches he received from the mountain man had a lot more weight and strength behind them than a regular punch. But Tony knew that even five years ago he wouldn't have been hurting as much as he was now. The hits would have jarred his bones, but not rattled them around inside his skin and made him feel as wrecked as he had today.

For Tony, it was as good a sign as any that he had to get himself together and make some grown up decisions. He wasn't a kid with enough time to waste on mistakes and denials anymore, and he couldn't afford to keep waiting around for the right time to go after what he wanted. It was some relief to him now that he had taken large, albeit completely unplanned steps in his relationship with Ziva. But he had to take the final one tonight. No matter how badly he wanted to just curl up in bed and die tonight, he had to talk to her like he had planned. He was sick to death of keeping the distance between them.

If the last two months had told him anything, it was that the earthquakes that had been going off between him and Ziva since day one weren't things to fear and avoid. Nor were they evidence for reasons they shouldn't be together. The way Tony saw it, they'd actually been working to make them fit together better. Every argument led to them understanding each other more. Every explosion had helped knock off the sharp edges that kept them apart and corrected the course they were on. Every stolen touch and 'almost' conversation turned them further towards the positions where they'd fit together the best. Everything had been leading to something, and Tony was finally at that point in his life where he wanted that something to happen _now_.

With determination filling him, Tony shut off the shower and gingerly dried himself off and pulled on long PJ pants. He hobbled out to the living room where Ziva was on the couch with her legs curled under her, eating plain pasta and watching ZNN. It was a comforting sight on a Sunday night, and he looked forward to it becoming a regular thing.

"Hey."

Ziva looked up as he announced his presence, but her smile quickly turned to an expression of alarm and she was off the couch and in front of him in three seconds flat.

"You did not say anything about _that_," she said, pointing at his stomach.

Tony looked down at the large bruise forming just off centre on his belly from where the mountain man had tried to eject Tony's breakfast with his fist. "Oh. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. That one didn't tickle."

He watched Ziva close her eyes and purse her lips, and he figured she was talking herself out of either yelling at him or sliding into nurse mode. He didn't want her to do either (well, not without costumes), so he was relieved when she just calmly opened her eyes and gestured towards his bedroom with her chin.

"You should go to bed. I will stay and check in on you."

But Tony wasn't ready for that. He leant back against the wall and started to cross his arms as he got ready for a significant conversation, but the pain made him shoot upright again and wince.

"Damn it," he whispered to himself, but he didn't let it deter him. "Look, before I do that, there were some things I was going to say. You know, before I left your place last night."

Ziva shook her head and took half a step towards him. "Tony, you do not need to say those things."

That wasn't exactly what he thought she'd say. What the hell did that mean? He cocked his head and looked at her measuringly. "Do you mean…? Are you saying…?" He sighed and looked away as he tried to form a complete sentence that would save his pride if she was headed where he feared she was. "Uh, are you not interested in hearing…things?"

Ziva was shaking her head again, more firmly than before, but that and her outstretched hands were supposed to reassure him. "Yes, of course I am interested in _things_. But they do not need to be said."

The throbbing in Tony's head that had been a companion for a few hours now got a little stronger as his heartbeat picked up with his panic. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and breathed as deep as he could, because goddamnit they were supposed to be fitting together right now and they just weren't.

"No, Ziva, some things really do need to be said," he insisted. "Because even without the head injury I would be confused right now."

Ziva looked a little contrite as the resistance drained out of her, and Tony felt only a teeny bit bad for the blatant manipulation of playing the head injury card.

"All right, then say them."

Tony nodded slowly and took a breath before realizing that his thoughts on the subject were still a massive jumble and he'd never actually gotten around to pulling out the relevant parts and setting them aside for use at the appropriate moment. He heard slow, sarcastic clapping start up in his head. _Nice work, DiNozzo. You are totally ready for this, and there is no way she's going to resist you. Awesome._

He sighed deeply and resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall. "I don't quite know how to say it," he admitted.

Ziva's contrition turned to amusement. "May I help?"

"Okay," he said warily.

"You want to keep kissing me," she stated.

"Yes, I do," he confirmed.

"You hopefully want to do more to me than kiss me."

He broke into a verifying smile. "Frequently. And with great enthusiasm."

She allowed him a brief smile. "And you are looking for some…permanency," she settled on. There was confidence in her tone, but Tony also heard the slight waver of nerves under the surface.

"Yes," he said firmly as his thoughts finally started sorting themselves out. "Permanency and exclusivity. I can't be patient anymore. I can't keep waiting for the right time, because there's no such thing."

Her eyes softened and flicked to his mouth. "Is that why you kissed me?"

"In the parking lot?" At Ziva's nod he asked, "What? You didn't think that was romantic?"

Ziva laughed before she could catch herself, and then pressed two fingers to her lips as she regained control. But Tony didn't take offence.

"That was not planned," he admitted. "That was not even registered as having happened until after it was over. That was an instinctive action that was as much as surprise to me as it was to you."

"It was slightly surprising, yes," Ziva told him.

He eyed her. "Look, before I go on can you please just give me an indication of whether the direction I'm heading in with all this is somewhere you want to go too?"

Her head fell to the side. "Permanency?" she repeated softly.

"Yes."

"Exclusivity?"

"Yes."

"More than kissing?"

"Yes," he nodded. "And I just want to make the point that my thoughts are not entirely focused on that element. It's a part of the bigger picture. Although I will admit that at this point in time, the physical aspect of all this makes up a large chunk of my thoughts."

"Are you calling me fat?" she asked, deadpan.

"No!" he replied lightning fast, and then frowned. "What? No! I was trying to say that I don't just want you for sex, although getting you naked is something I'm thinking about a lot right now."

Ziva tried not to laugh at him. "I was joking," she told him.

He stared at her for a beat. "I have a head injury," he countered.

Ziva seemed to roll her eyes a little, and Tony made a note not to play the head injury card again tonight. But then she leaned into him and the warmth of her body made his skin prickle.

"I will not make it difficult for you to get me naked," she assured him.

He took that in with a slow smile, but attempted to keep things on track. "Okay. So…all that. How do you feel about it?"

Ziva's eyes traveled the wall behind him as she thought about it. "Lucky," she finally settled on.

He stared at her again. "Hell of a time to be abstract, Ziva."

Ziva lifted a hand to touch his chest, but aborted at the last moment and dropped her hand so her pinky finger could link with his. "Does that hurt?"

"No." Yeah, a little bit.

"I have a lucky feeling about it," she elaborated. "I think that you are right. There is no suck thing as the right time. But it does feel like now is a good time. And I will take that bet."

Tony's cheeks hurt when he smiled. "Are you saying you have feelings for me?" he pushed.

Ziva sighed. "Are you _sure_ they said it was only a mild concussion?"

"Pretty sure."

Ziva looked down at her shuffling feet, and then smoothed her hair off her face and opened up to him. "Yes, I have feelings for you. Feelings that do not relate exclusively to the urge to strangle you, although that feeling is currently growing within me." She shot him a warning look and Tony nodded in understanding. "Yes, I want to do more than kiss you. Yes, I want whatever this turns into to last as long as possible. And there are things I want to say to you, but…" She closed her eyes and took a breath. "I am not ready to say them yet. Or hear them. It does not mean that I do not feel them, or that I want to wait to do this until I am. It just means that I need to get comfortable with this first."

The leaning towards emotional self preservation was a classic David move, one that Tony had been dealing with since the moment they met. He understood it, and particularly right now. He couldn't blame her. Besides, she'd just said that she had feelings for him and wanted to do this. She just wasn't ready to say the 'L' word. Frankly, neither was he. It didn't matter. They'd get there, hopefully. What mattered now was that they were actually going to do this.

"That's fine. I need to get comfortable too," he told her.

Ziva visibly relaxed. "Okay. Good."

He nodded. "Good. So, I'm going to kiss you now."

Ziva chuckled. "You do not have to warn me. You never have before now."

He lifted his hand to cup her cheek as he moved closer. "Neither have you," he accused against her lips, and then kissed her. He really, really wanted to give himself over to it and make it the kind of kiss that fitted the weight of the moment. But Ziva's hands automatically lifted to grip his waist, and Tony couldn't help the extremely unmanly squeal he let out at the pain it induced. Ziva groaned into his mouth and lifted her hands off him, but Tony had to break the moment.

"Turns out this is actually the worst timing ever," he muttered.

Ziva held her hands way out to the sides of her body. "I will not touch you."

"Yes, you will," he protested, and took both her hands in his. He wrapped them carefully around him and directed her hands to his butt. "My ass doesn't hurt. Keep them there."

"Tony," she started on a sigh, but he didn't want to hear the argument. He swooped in to kiss her again, and when he was sure her hands wouldn't move he lifted his to her face.

The kiss was kind of painful still, especially on his face. But it was worth it. Worth it, worth it…still worth it…okay, no good. He pulled back again.

"Don't take this as a comment on your amazing skills," he started, and Ziva finished for him.

"But you are in pain and would like to go to sleep."

"Yes."

"I expected this."

She took her hands off him and then followed him as he hobbled into his bedroom and lowered himself into bed.

"I'm a fast healer, Ziva," he told her as they both pulled the sheet up over him.

"No, you are not," she gently argued.

Tony continued on in the hope that if he willed it to happen, it would. "All DiNozzos are. It's a genetic thing."

"No, it is not."

"Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and…" He trailed off as Josh's disturbing story about his morning with Celeste entered his head.

Ziva looked at him oddly. "And forget your name and where you are?"

Tony let his eyes fall to look down Ziva's top as she leaned over him, and he successfully replaced the icky thought with a much, much better one. "No. I'm going to wake up and everything's going to be in peak condition again."

"Okay," she said, humoring him. "I am going to wake you up a few times during the night so you can tell me how your recovery is progressing and assure me that you are not bleeding into your skull."

"Sounds good."

Ziva leaned over to turn off the light before placing her hands on his pillow on either side of his head. She leaned down to kiss him softly. "I am very pleased that you still have it in you to surprise yourself."

He knew she was talking about the surprise parking lot kiss that had started it all, and he smiled up at her. "Me too."

"Get some sleep."

As she walked out of the room, Tony's heartbeat started slowing down and the throbbing in his head started to subside. Almost immediately he started to feel himself drift off, and as he did he held on to the thought that despite having his ass handed to him today, it was still one of the best days he'd ever had. Because today he found the place where he fit.

* * *

><p><strong>One more chapter to go, my friends. Although I have to warn you that I have massive writer's block at the moment so…it might take a little while. Sorry. <strong>


	7. To commit

**A/N: Sorry this has been such a long time coming. My head just hasn't been in a _Quake_ place. (And for those of you who are asking, it's still not in a _Famiglia_ place. Sorry.) But the final installment is finally here, and I can now stop feeling so guilty. Enjoy!  
>Very slight dirtiness at the end, but it's nothing close to my usual smut.<br>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.**

* * *

><p>In his wildest dreams, Tony never thought that one kiss could turn into something more.<p>

Scratch that. In his wildest dreams, that one kiss with Ziva turned into crazy, scorching hot, bed-breaking sex every night of the week until he died. But he didn't think it would ever really happen. They'd lived with the earthquakes and tornados and hurricanes and droughts of their relationship for six years, and in that time they'd become survivalists. They could stand more or less steady through each disaster and then expertly dig through the wreckage of it for pieces to salvage and rebuild. Tony assumed it would continue on that way until either one of them was too damaged to be repaired again and hobbled away, completely broken, or until one of them died. He never thought they'd actually be able to stop the quakes for long enough to find a win/win resolution.

He wasn't stupid or naive enough to think that the quakes would stop just because they'd managed to be honest for once. And frankly, he didn't want them to. They were part of their relationship—part of what made them _them_—and if they stopped for too long then the relationship would most likely fall apart through boredom or lack of passion. As far as Tony was concerned, they should let the quakes continue.

And they did. Except that the next tremor to hit their relationship was not figurative, but literal. Sort of.

**To commit**

It had been six days since Tony had his ass handed to him and had regrettably ruled out activities of consummation. He and Ziva had begun the week on tenterhooks as they awaited the opportunity to seal the serious-if-glossed-over deal they'd made. But when they'd caught a triple homicide before the ink was even dry on their cold case, their excitement had slowly eroded into exhaustion. By day five, exhaustion had taken a left turn towards uncertainty over whether any sealing of deals was _ever_ going to happen, given the length of time between agreement and action. By the morning of day six, Tony was exhibiting signs of crankiness on par with those of a man who had gone a week without sex when he usually got it every day. Apparently the part of his brain that controlled sex-related emotion (i.e. 98 per cent of it) had wanted it so badly that it had actually been convinced that he'd been having it all along.

He got to leave the office early on Friday afternoon to attend his final check up at the hospital. But he was so tired and frustrated with the week he'd had that when he threw his backpack over his shoulder and given Gibbs and McGee a curt goodbye, Tony had actually forgotten _why_ he was so frustrated. Not even almost walking straight into Ziva as she stepped off the elevator and he stepped on reminded him. He was just too focused on getting out of the office and leaving his crappy week behind.

"Hey!" Ziva said as she watched him blow past her with little more than a tired smile.

Tony hit the button for the ground floor. "Hey."

"You are going?" she asked.

Tony nodded as he fished around in the front pocket of his backpack for his car keys. "Yeah. Just got a final check up for my head. See you Monday."

He caught a glimpse of Ziva's eyes widening in surprise before the doors slid shut between them and the elevator started its descent. It was not long afterwards that Tony's brain caught up with his mouth, and with sudden and ferocious panic he slammed his palms against the doors as if the act would magically open them again.

"NO!" he yelled at them, and then directed his next question at himself. "_What the hell is wrong with you?"_

He couldn't answer himself, and the elevator didn't return him to the bullpen 30 seconds in the past for a do-over. He took his hands from the door so that he could deliver himself a brutal slap to the back of the head, and then stooped to pick up his car keys that had fallen to the floor. _See you Monday?_ he repeated in his head in total disbelief. _Girl who I told a few days ago that I wanted a relationship with, and have been looking for a time all week to consummate the agreement with. I don't plan on seeing you this weekend because I AM A GODDAMN IDIOT!_

The elevator doors slid open in the foyer and Tony walked through them in a dread-induced daze. His stupid, distracted brain had been the thing to get him into this extremely enjoyable kissing situation, and now it was responsible for booting him out of it. He couldn't imagine that Ziva would let this go without breaking at least one of his kneecaps. And only then might she give him the opportunity to fix it.

_Fix it_. He stopped abruptly before walking out of the building, causing an agent who looked approximately 12 years old to bump into him. He murmured an apology and stepped out of the flow of pedestrian traffic to consider his options. Should he go straight back up there and talk to her? No, Gibbs would know straight away that something fishy was going on, and Tony was hoping to keep _el jefe_ in the dark for a little while longer. Maybe he should call her? And say what? _Sorry, I forgot that we were supposed to have sex. You know, if you're still interested. Maybe you've changed your mind since the weekend. Come to your senses. Which I would understand, since I am clearly intellectually challenged._

He rubbed his chin and considered a third option. He could text her. _Soz I forgot our plans. LOL! C U 2nite? xx. _Yeah, he didn't think that would go down too well. God, he was so out of practice at all this. He knew exactly how to deliberately disappoint a woman so that she would never want you to call her again, but he'd completely forgotten how to make a woman he actually wanted to be with happy.

He would have to call her. Not right now, though. He'd go to his appointment, give her an hour or two to calm down, then call her, apologize profusely, ask if she wanted to see him because he absolutely wanted to see her, and then apologize again. And if she didn't want to see him tonight, well, that sucked. But he wouldn't throw in the towel. He'd just give her space and try again tomorrow.

As he signed with resignation and walked out of the NCIS building to head to his appointment, Tony shook his head and echoed Danny Glover: _I'm getting too old for this shit._

* * *

><p>Despite anecdotal evidence to support a diagnosis of a significant head injury, Tony left the hospital two hours later with a clean bill of health. It was coming up on 1700, and on a normal day there was little chance that Ziva would have left the office by then. But the team wasn't working on any active cases today and they'd already put in a significant amount of overtime that week. He thought it was possible that she was someplace outside of Gibbs' earshot by now, and his eagerness to sort his mess out had him reaching for his cell phone before he'd reached his car in the parking lot. He took a deep breath, dialed her number, and then sent a quick prayer that she wasn't as frustrated with him as he was.<p>

"David," she answered in her usual sharp tone, and Tony hoped that was just because she was still in work mode.

"Hey," he said, trying to sound normal. "I just left the hospital with a clean bill of health. Are you heading home?"

"Not yet," she replied, and he was relieved to hear her tone soften to her normal speaking tone. "I have another report to finish."

Tony stopped wincing so hard and continued the conversation with only mild caution. "So, you might be home in about two hours?"

Ziva 'hmm'ed as she thought it over. "Yes, that would be about right."

"And do you have plans after that?" he asked carefully.

The question was met with a few seconds' silence, and Tony started to wince again. Had he pushed it too far?

"Are you being deliberately dense?" she finally asked.

The question was harsh, but she sounded more amused than annoyed. He decided to chance playing with her. A little charm to grease the wheels.

"I can see why you would think that, but I'm not," he told her. "And the doctor says I definitely don't have a brain injury, so I can't blame that either."

Ziva gave a soft snort. "So, this is just you?"

Tony nodded at himself in the reflection of his car window. "Yeah. But you've known me for six years, so you can't act like you didn't already know that. And you've given the impression lately that you still kind of like me despite the obvious density of my brain."

"Wonders will never cease," she muttered, but he was sure there was at least a tiny bit of affection in her voice. "I am free."

Tony unleashed a smile and quietly sighed with utter relief. Dodged a bullet much? "Okay. Then I might come by?"

"_Might?_" she questioned quickly and sharply.

"Will," he revised, just as quickly. "I _will_ come by, Ziva. In about two hours."

"Okay, bye," she said, and then hung up abruptly. She might have been playing him, but Tony decided not to take offence. She was still in the office, and Tony knew all too well how quickly personal conversations had to end once you caught sight of a scowling Gibbs charging towards you.

He smiled as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and got into the car. He might have screwed up, but the fact that she still wanted to see him tonight had to mean that she loved him, right? Because Ziva David was not the kind of woman who suffered fools gladly. It seemed she was making allowances for him, and Tony hoped that she'd continue to do so for a really long time. Because God knew it would be easier for her to do that than for him to stop doing stupid things.

Besides, if he'd vowed then and there to stop doing stupid things, he might never have made it to her apartment that night at all. He didn't know it when he was getting into his car at the hospital, but things were about to get weird.

* * *

><p>At the exact moment that Tony stepped onto the street on his way to Ziva's house, the Capitol went into meltdown. He'd heard on the radio as he was driving back from the hospital that a gas plant near the river had caught fire, and that they were evacuating the docks around the area. Tony didn't devote too much thought to the event when he'd heard about it (his mind was kind of focused on other things). But all that changed when the soles of his Zengas touched the pavement outside his apartment building and an almighty <em>BOOM<em> made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and his hand automatically reach for his gun. Half a breath later the ground beneath his feet shook—a real quake to complement the emotional tremors that had been rattling Tony and Ziva's relationship—and people on the street around him started running for cover.

If he had to be honest, Tony's first thought was of another terror attack. But then a guy jogged past him talking into his cell phone about the gas plant fire, and Tony relaxed. Sort of. It might not have been an attack from enemies foreign, but an explosion large enough to shake the ground miles from its source was definitely something to worry about. While he might not personally have to be involved in policing the incident, it still had the potential to screw up his evening. Ziva's apartment was quite a bit closer to the river than his, and if they started evacuating people then she was potentially within the danger zone.

If he were superstitious, Tony might have thought that the explosion on top of his screw up that afternoon was a sign. A giant 'Wrong way, go back!' sign to warn him against continuing on the journey that had started six long years ago. He did have some superstitions. He wouldn't walk under a ladder, he didn't trust black cats and he firmly believed that if someone was causing you grief and you wanted to get them out of your life, you just had to write their name on a piece of paper, stick it in the freezer, and the universe would take care of the rest. (Okay, that was something stupid that his aunts had told him as a kid, but the one time he'd sheepishly done it, it had worked brilliantly and he would not question it further.) But in this case, when a relationship with the woman he'd been in love with for years was on the line, he would reject all superstitions.

Come hell, high water, ass kickings or major gas plant explosions that would probably require a good portion of the District to evacuate, Tony was _not_ going to delay this evening any longer.

He and his Mustang persevered to within three blocks of her apartment before traffic became a slow, tangled mess. Cars were stalled at all angles as people abandoned traffic laws in an effort to either leave the area or get closer to the action. He was going slowly enough to feel another explosion shake the ground, and the distraction caused a mini pile up in the other lane. The car to his left bumped into the back of the car ahead, which then rolled into the car in front of it. Tony's eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror and he braced himself for a corresponding bump from the SUV behind him, but he'd lucked out and managed to score one of the few drivers in the District that had respect for stopping distance tailing him. Even still, he felt that on this monumental day in his life, he could only push good luck so far. Surely he'd been stupid to try to get this far in such a mess, so he decided that three blocks away was close enough. He found a spare space on the street beside a deli, locked the car, prayed that no one would get so distracted that they smashed into the side of it, and then took of towards Ziva's apartment on foot.

The power in her building had been knocked out and the elevators weren't working, so Tony climbed six flights of stairs to get to her. Perhaps it was karma, he thought as he shook the dizziness from going around in circles from his head. Not the explosion, but the traffic and the stair-climbing. Perhaps if he hadn't walked out of the office today like he didn't have any reason to want to see her this weekend then the elevators in her building would have still been working. Perhaps this was a lesson for him to learn. Pay attention, or else spend time with the StairMaster.

Not that he was superstitious.

He took his time to wander down the corridor to her apartment so that he might catch his breath a little before he presented himself to the woman who thought that a 15-mile run was light exercise. He checked his watch and found that he was a half hour late, but he thought he had a pretty good excuse. It was just a shame that it had happened today, of all days. Particularly since she might still be harboring some irritation with him from the afternoon. He hoped he'd read her mood right on the phone and that she wasn't actually that upset. But there was only one way to find out.

He knocked on her door, and almost before he'd had time to run a smoothing hand through his hair Ziva was standing in front of him. She was wide-eyed and smiling with excitement, but Tony knew that wasn't because of him. Something else had her as animated as a kid unwrapping an Xbox on Christmas morning.

"Did you see the explosion?" she asked in a rush.

Ah, yes. The explosion. An event that was sure to get Ziva David's military blood bumping. He should have anticipated her interest in it.

"I felt it," he told her.

Ziva grabbed his wrist, and he managed to slam the door shut behind him before she forcibly dragged him through her dim apartment to her living room window. She had pushed the glass aside as far as it would go, allowing her to stick her head, shoulders and half her torso out the window.

"Look!" she called back to him.

Tony approached the open window more cautiously than his partner, and his first glance was at the pavement six floors below before her followed her gaze east towards the river. Through the veil of Ziva's curls dancing around in the breeze and the smoke haze that filled the sky, Tony got his first look at the fire raging a few miles away. Even taking into account the explosions he'd felt all the way back at his place, the sheer size of the blaze took him by surprise.

_For the love of God,_ he prayed, _please don't let us get evacuated_._ We have very important things we need to get done tonight._

"You can even feel the heat," Ziva said, turning her head to look at him. "Can you believe it? And I felt the shockwave. It will take them all night and tomorrow to get it under control."

Tony retreated back into the safety of her living room. "Glad I don't have anywhere else to be, then," he said. "Traffic's going to be torture. I'm talking _Battlefield Earth_ kind of torture, Ziva."

"I know," she called back, although he wasn't convinced that she'd even heard him.

He watched with an uncomfortable knot in his stomach as she leaned even further out the window. She rested her stomach against the window frame and pressed her hand against the wall to hold her weight before tipping herself forward to get a better look. Her feet left the floor, and although Tony knew she had the balance and flexibility of a cat that had been practicing yoga for 20 years, he still had visions of her tipping too far and plummeting to her death. That would put quite a damper on his plans for the weekend, to say the least.

He lifted his foot and pressed it against her calf muscles until he'd tipped her all the way back into the apartment and her feet were on the floor. Ziva turned to look at him in question.

"Humor me," he said. "I only got properly mobile myself this morning. I don't want to now have to deal with you breaking your pretty legs."

Ziva smiled and looked down at the pretty legs in question before turning her eyes on him. Her gaze raked from head to toe, almost in the same way it had on that first day they'd met in the bullpen. But now, six years later, there was emotion and history behind the look that made it so much better. Not to mention a heaping dose of sexual desire. Tony was becoming a huge fan of the way she eyeballed him now that she was 'allowed' to.

"How did your appointment go?" she asked. It seemed that he'd wrestled her attention from the fire for the moment.

"Good," he replied. "They said my brain is perfect."

She threw him a look that was 70 per cent disbelief, and 30 per cent affection. "Perfect for what?" she deadpanned.

He smiled wide, encouraging her playfulness. He'd always liked it when she did the verbal tango with him. "Human cannonball work," he replied.

Ziva shook her head. "I do not know how I feel about running away to the circus with you."

Tony got a little tingle in his belly at the idea that she would run away anywhere with him. "They said I'm in the clear," he told her more plainly.

Her smile and nod showed honest relief. "Good."

He was about to suggest what they might be able to do now that he was in the clear and they both had a full weekend of freedom ahead of them when yet another explosion went off across the river. Ziva spun around and shoved her head out the window again as the building trembled and the pictures hanging on her wall shook. In the reflection of the windows in the building across the street, Tony saw an enormous fireball shoot up into the sky. He was now positive that they wouldn't get through the weekend without getting evacuated from her apartment. But maybe they would have a few hours before they had to pack the wagon and head for his place.

"Ziva," he said in response to a sound of wonder that passed her lips. "I can't help but notice that you seem just a little too interested and tingly about the flames and the danger."

She laughed as she returned all parts of her body to the apartment. "What should I be interested in?"

He wasn't sure if it was meant as an invitation, but he took it as one. "Maybe the fact that I haven't kissed you in six days."

Ziva's excited smile turned coy, and she stepped away from the window towards him. "Hmm. I thought you said that you were trying to make a habit of that."

"I was," he confirmed. "I am."

She stood a foot from his chest and lifted one eyebrow. "It seems as though you are breaking it."

His fingers found the hem of her t-shirt and he gave it a tug for emphasis. "You haven't kissed me either," he pointed out.

"Oh, well I have been very busy," she returned.

Tony smiled, and then curled his hand around her hip and pulled her a little closer. "I miss it," he told her seriously.

Her coy smile returned, and then she lifted her hands to cradle his jaw. Tony lowered his head as she pressed her body against his, and then she caught his lips in a soft, slow kiss. He felt her hands leave his face and her arms wrap around his neck, and by the time he'd curled his arms around her back the spark had caught and the kiss had gotten far more demanding and passionate.

Ziva moaned into his mouth as his hands started running up her back and into her hair, but she held back from touching him back. After a few intense seconds, he worked out why.

"Are you still tender everywhere?" she asked in a voice higher and breathier than her usual.

"I'm not tender anywhere," he assured her. "I felt myself up before I came over to be sure."

"I am surprised that you did not ask the nurse to do that for you at the hospital."

"Oh, I'd planned on it," he said as one of his hands traveled down to her butt. "But he had really meaty hands and they just weren't doing it for me."

Ziva chuckled, but before she gave in and started feeling him up herself, she took her arms from around his neck and then gently pressed her hand against the part of his stomach that had been bruised a few days ago. It was still a little bit tender, and he was still kind of blue and grey under his shirt, but it was nothing that would get in the way tonight. She watched him closely as she pressed a little harder, and Tony gave her a self-confident smile.

"See? Completely fine," he told her. "Ready to prove to you exactly how fine it is before another fireball comes towards us and either we get evacuated or you lose interest in me so you can watch—"

He stropped abruptly when her hand slid from his stomach and down a few inches to cup him over his jeans. She lifted her eyebrows to make a point about where her interest was, and by now, Tony was pretty sure that she was past whatever measure of irritation she'd had with him that afternoon.

"Hi," he said, as if making introductions.

Ziva chuckled. "This is not your knee, correct?"

If it didn't feel so nice, he would have laughed. Instead, he shook his head quickly and let her win their six-year-old argument. "No. You are 100 per cent correct this time about what that is."

Ziva smiled triumphantly before kissing him and rubbing the heel of her hand against him. He let out a moan as another tremor rumbled through the building, and then Ziva took a step back. She took his wrist in her hand as she had when he'd first arrived, but this time the tug she gave it was gentle.

"Come with me," she beckoned as she backed up towards her bedroom.

Tony could scarcely remember a time when he'd gone anywhere quite so willingly. Chaos might have been rife on the street below, but for the first time in a long time he and Ziva were the ones taking the quakes in their stride and not worrying about the aftermath. Let everyone else panic. Tonight, the two of them were safe as houses.

* * *

><p><strong>I told you up front there would be no smut, remember? So I'm afraid this is it. Thanks for reading!<strong>


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